I have to say, this was exactly the mantra back in 2012/2013. For real.
Yet here we are. I bet we will be hearing the same thing in 5 years, yet people will still be mining at home for a small profit.
It might have been the mantra but that doesn't make it incorrect. The GPUs used back in 2012/2013 would have been very inefficient compared to the newer ones available in 2016/2017 when home mining made its comeback.
Sure if you hung on to your gear from 2012/2013 you would have made some additional profits in 2016/2017, but you would have made more money by selling your gear off back in 2014 when it still had value and with that money either bought coins directly when they were cheap or invested in newer cards in early 2016 when mining started becoming profitable again. Mining is cyclic which seems to take 4-5 years to work through the entire boom/bust phase, well GPU technology and efficiency changes quite a bit in those 4 to 5 years to expect your old hardware to compete when the new cycle hits.
So yes in 5 years we will be hearing the same thing and people will be home mining, but they will be mining with new GPUs not even available yet that will outperform your current cards by 2-3 times. I also say sell them off now while they still may have some worth and either save the money for new cards in 1-2 more years, or better yet just buy some coins outright while they are cheap and just hang on for the next cycle.
its one thing if vega and 2000 series were say like double the power or efficiency but they barely push
20 percent better than polaris and 10x
better to hold
If the electricity price allows it for you then yes, it's better to HODL the gear also.