The interesting case of pool-identity

[rjk]

What pools still use proportional payouts?

Deepbit and Slush.

All the little ones dried up and blew away? Also, Slush is time weighted, which makes it a little more of a gamble. (Still fun to try though)

[DeathAndTaxes]

Not much of a gamble.  Really hard to hop out such that you have -EV.  You might leave some profit on the table or hop too late so in effect you are mining for fair value part of the time.

It is less profitable but not less risky.  As greener pastures have dried up the hoppers have begun raping the crap out Slush pool.  Score was never really effective at preventing hoppers it just limited their profitability and when there were juicier targets Slush pool was "protected".

[Isokivi]

I personally "do math" every 1800 blocks and whenever the exchange rate moves over 15%. I have to, when electricity rolls in at 0,17$ there arent that large margins involved.

[btcx]

I suspect there are a number of factors at play here but my guess is that for most people it's just that they stand to gain very little from switching away from Deepbit and it's not worth the brainpower/time it'd take to determine the best new choice and get everything set up, and the chance that they could be wrong again, and more wrong than they are already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticky_(economics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis