Right I was just kidding because of all of the talk about electric costs. But, I guess things like this are actually considered in this forum.

It'd be nice if I lived next to a stream of water so I could get the hydroelectric off of it. I do have a creek next to me, hmmmm.

It didn't occur to me that ButterflyLabs was also mining...arghh. It seems like the Antminser S1 has the best H/s/$. Still though it feels now as if these are just scraps. The curve seems to be almost created by the hardware makers because they can get their hardware so much more cheaply reaching ROI before anyone else. Unless you're a hardware maker you're going to be fighting the curve..

So, I'm new to bitcoin Was looking at getting a new ButterflyLabs Monarch 300GH/s card. I started using some calculators at bitwisdom and others. Seems that with the historical increases in difficulty and the cost of new hardware that it's going to be nigh impossible to make any profit from mining. The rate of difficulty increasing seems to be averaging 20%. The newest rate increase was estimated at 15.2%. But still...According to the calculator I'm going to make nowhere near even covering the hardware costs of $1497. How can anyone make a profit unless they are already established with hardware? There can be some profit it seems if you buy the hardware when it immediately becomes available, but by itself with no other hardware, because of the increasing difficulty, you're just not going to reach profitability. Is everyone hoping that bitcoin is going to reach some astronomical high, like +$1500BTC/$? While not unthinkable it hasn't happened yet? What factors are people betting on that will increase the value of BTC/$?

Am I looking at this right? Barring all extreme scenarios, like it bitcoin were to shoot through the roof in value or the difficulty were to drop dramatically or some long-term DDoS attack were to happen to the incumbents, if I were to start mining today, would it be possible to mine enough bitcoin that it'd even be worth it? Am I looking at the numbers right?

Hash rate: 300GH/s
Hardware price: $1497
Watts: 175
Electricity price: $0.15/kWh
Current bitcoin value: $423.99/BTC

Difficulty increment: 20%
Pool fee: 2%

It seems that the time period that had the potential to do mining of any significance, like to buy hardware with your earnings and have a doubling effect, has passed.