There's a sucker born every minute. Most of the world out there has no idea how to calculate how much money they're (not) going to make with mining hardware. Even the informed people on this forum struggle with it.
much of the confusion involves :
1) BTC to USD(fiat)
2) the lack of understanding that " if you had purchased BTC and held it you would have made more money". means absolutely nothing in calculations
3)all calculations are worthless beyond 3 diff adjustments.
4) you need a basic understanding of your country's tax and accounting laws to determine profit.
As for 1000 usd for a little single.
if I have 90 am sticks I have 30gh
3 am sticks sell for 125 on ebay
so if I sell 30 of my sticks I get 1250. 90 sticks = 3750 but I want to do this fast so
if I sell the hubs I was using I get 9x 50 if they were 10 port hubs= 450 that is 1700 shipping and fees vary but less then 300 so I net 1400
pay 1000 for the ls I have 400 in pocket I burn less power to run the ls . I tell myself don't be greedy and sell 3 sticks for 100 I have the best price on ebay by far.. 30 sales of 3 will happen in 2 or 3 days. gross funds are 30 x 100. after fees of 5 to ship and 7 for paypal/ebay I net 88 a sale or 30 x 88 = 2640
and I then sell the 10 hubs for 40 each as used . that is 400 after fees about 320 2640+ 320 = 2960 buy the LS for 1000 get ebay rebates of at least 40 bucks so 960 2960-960 = 2000 net!!
same hash power. and 2 k richer!! plus the LS uses less wires. and a little less power.
so for me the owner of a 90 stick usb farm the 1k price makes sense. and just think if I purchased the sticks at the low of 7 usd each. those 90 sticks may have been as little as 630 usd.
This is why the game has deep complex moves for money gain and loss.
A 630 usd investment could have been made and turned into 2k usd and a LS.
For the same reason a 250 red fury makes sense. 6 am sticks and a hub go for about 300 . I get 2.5gh instead of 2gh some cash in hand and less hubs and sticks to deal with.