Mining vs. buying BTC

[weaknesswaran]

Does anybody have a comparision what was more profitable in the past?

[Amph]

speculating on them is a gamble also, at least with mining, you are sure to make profit, unless your electricity is too expansive

[Amph]

speculating on them is a gamble also, at least with mining, you are sure to make profit, unless your electricity is too expansive

No, you are not. Even if you have a free electricity your hardware can break or difficulty can rise so much, that you'll never make your money back.
But I agree, that speculation is a gamble. You can make a profit, but first you'll loose much money in exchange for learning. First hand experience :-)
That's why I advise buying some BTC and forgetting about them for 10 years.

hardware break is covered by warranty(this is why vga are better), and with free electricity the profit is assured
also you can resell them pretty easily

[bcpokey]

There is no way to compare the profitability of buying BTC vs mining BTC, unless you put some sort of  boundary conditions on your question.

Buying coins in Dec 2009 is incredibly different than buying coins in July 2011. Also how long to hold before selling (are you mining on a GPU in 2010, and holding until April 2013? Or selling as soon as you get them?)

Typically if you've been smart and lucky, both have panned out well. If you've been stupid and/or unlucky you've done very very poorly.

In general mining is the safer more conservative route, with less liquidity to play with for big gains. Pick your personal poison.

[erk]

Does anybody have a comparision what was more profitable in the past?

Neither was more profitable, as buying doesn't make any profit, only selling does.

[servicelabs]

Do both!