I would guess it is going to get really hard to get a decent ROI until the rig vendors start charging reasonable prices per Gigaghash for their products. Some of the margins they earn are obscene, especially when they have the advantage of getting full payments up front.
But until you get suppliers that look at making rigs as a ongoing product rather than a ticket to easy riches (at others expense) then this is reality miners face. With the amount of product that's going to get dumped onto the network by the end of March - probably in excess of 180,000TH - you'll be lucky to break even paying $3/GH for your hardware.
And it's only going to get worse from there.
But until you get suppliers that look at making rigs as a ongoing product rather than a ticket to easy riches (at others expense) then this is reality miners face. With the amount of product that's going to get dumped onto the network by the end of March - probably in excess of 180,000TH - you'll be lucky to break even paying $3/GH for your hardware.
And it's only going to get worse from there.
Whether we like it or not, its a "free market". And yes, most mining producers look very short term, certainly not for repeat customers.
Maybe this will change, but how can one mining company change on its own. Its products will start to look "expensive" compared with others, and not sell.
Since I don't mine I suppose I shouldn't be moaning on about the price of rigs. It's just that the short term mentality makes me mad, Bitcoin depends on the participation of lots of people to make it work, not just the ones who have the money to start with. It's more than possible for a rig supplier to make products for a few hundred dollars that can give $/GH less than 2, and I suspect that the market for said devices would be huge - not for a 'one shot' product but for many years to come if done right.
But I guess that greed rules over common sense!
To be honest, mining hardware manufacturers are "techies", not business people. Many have no concept of customer satisfaction or loyalty. Who knows, perhaps a company will pop up in 2014 that ticks more boxes than the current "pre-order and cross your fingers brigade".
