Actually, they need new customers to pay for the refunds.

 Look. I really don't see what the problem is here. Just wait another two weeks. Come on. Be reasonable.

 They will most assuredly deliver.

Much like I told Flying Hellfish, once you become an adult, you will realize that reality (and the rest of the world) does not care about you.  Reality is what it is, you can accept it or deny it, but it will still be reality.  Nothing needs to be proven, no work needs to be shown.  You either accept reality or you deny it, the choice is up to you.  Reality doesn't care about you and what you believe, and just like I told Mr. Hellfish, neither do I. 

the whole point of the difficulty adjustments is to ensure that new blocks (confirmations) are generated at a rate of one every 10 minutes, no more, no less, regardless of total network hash rate.

Any ideas on what happened?

i just read this post and the one linked from it by jason. he used a lot of unnecessarily large words to say that the average person here is too stupid for his mighty brain, and grammar you use on internet forums=intelligence.

i am new here, but seriously, why is the loss of this member a bad thing? he seemed like a total dick from that post i read.

nope, if i cant make a reasonable amount that positively effects my life i will find something else to do.

...it's in our commercial interest to see transactions confirmed quickly, maintain multiple copies of the blockchain, and so on - it's _nice_ to see some Satoshi's from the miner, but it's certainly not necessary.

they will make the money and bail just like mining for gold oil or diamonds in third world countries. they will be there when its profitable and fuck you when they cant make no more off you.

fuck that, you may be OK with that but i will bet you my soul the majority of people will not be OK with that. people dont invest to break even. they expect or hope for a return.

The satire probably does not work if you were the ones who fell for it -- namely each of those who replied to this post or believed it.

If a restaurant is too crowded, nobody will eat there and it will go out of business.

Difficulty adjusts.  If SOME people stop mining then difficulty will fall and those remaining will see their revenue rise and become profitable.  If difficulty falls too much then some people will turn rigs back on or buy new rigs and difficulty will rise again.  The network will adjust either way.

Also once hardware is purchased it is a sunk cost.  So long AFTER it becomes unprofitable to buy MORE NEW hardware, miners will continue to still operate their miners.  The only time it makes sense to a rig to be idle is when value of BTC < electricity used and that is at a difficulty much much higher (closer to 1 billion difficulty).  Even there it won't affect all miners equally.  The least efficient miners (lowerst MH/W and highest electrical cost) will idle first and help to lower difficulty.

So yes some miners may quit (and sell their rigs to other miners will cheaper power) and NEW hardware sales may flatline but miners will still keep mining as there is no economical reason not to.