why pay fees when mining??

[Bitconian]

I was wondering what's the advantage of mining in pools like 50btc and others where they charge you 3%  (others sites may vary)

Why would you pay a % when you can do it for free? Do you mine more btc in those places?

I use bitminter. There is no % but they don't pay you for orphans like 50btc does

Is it a better option to pay a small % but be paid with orphans?

What is your pool and why you chose it?

Thanks

[chorchonga]

So I am trying to figure out this for myself.  I have been with Slush's pool for a while, not mining frequently, because my GPU only does like 5Mh/s.  But, since they changed it so later shares are worth more, I make almost nothing.  Been looking at deepbit, but trying to find the best match for me.  What is meant by orphans?  Hashes you get after the block is already found?

[Bitconian]

So I am trying to figure out this for myself.  I have been with Slush's pool for a while, not mining frequently, because my GPU only does like 5Mh/s.  But, since they changed it so later shares are worth more, I make almost nothing.  Been looking at deepbit, but trying to find the best match for me.  What is meant by orphans?  Hashes you get after the block is already found?

I'm also trying to figure it out....but so far, I found out that an orphan is:
Blocks in shorter chains (or invalid chains) are called "orphan blocks", and while they are stored, they are not used for anything. When a block becomes an orphan block, all of its valid transactions are re-added to the pool of queued transactions and will be included in another block. The 50 BTC reward for the orphan block will be lost, which is why a network-enforced 100-block maturation time for generations exists.
 
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain


Here you can see the % of all pools:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104664.0

and the Top Ten: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=106417.0

Top Ten Pools
1.Deepbit   3927 GH/s
2.50BTC   3651 GH/s
3.BTC Guild   2651 GH/s
4.Slush's   1973 GH/s
5.EclipseMC   1889 GH/s
6.BitMinter   1229 GH/s
7.MT. Red   876 GH/s
8.OZCoin   840 GH/s
9.P2Pool   372 GH/s
10.LTZod   367 GH/s

Courtesy of organofcorti weekly pool watch Updated 10/01/2012

Current Difficulty 10/03/2012 3054627.52695

All Information Can be found on http://www.btcmu.info/
Neighborhood Pool Watch http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/

[Meni Rosenfeld]

For the same reason you pay for anything else - that you are given a service worth paying for.

If BitMinter leaves you wanting for nothing that's great - but pools vary on a wide range of aspects (reward method, website interface, stability, monitoring, customer support, merged mining, cashout...) , and for some people 3% is a small price to pay for the features they need.

But, since they changed it so later shares are worth more, I make almost nothing.

The score system didn't harm your long-term earnings (in fact it improved them since you suffer less from hopping). Either you were seeing the effects of the rapidly rising difficulty at the time, or you had some bad luck.

[Graet]

Most pools (not all) got an early advantage when there were no fee free options other than solo mining. And since they got an early advantage, they have size and therefor less variance. So, people pay a fee for less variance. Also simplicity.

Seems silly to me, yet look at the size of the fee pools.

Options like P2Pool may take a bit more work, but I think it's a no brainer to choose them.

might be a no brainer for you, but you also say

"So, people pay a fee for less variance. Also simplicity." and "P2Pool may take a bit more work"
so yeah lots of people find mining on pools a no-brainer.

OP
No 2 pools offer the same features (p2pool included) people choose on a number of reasons, stability of the pool seems to be less of an issue for miners on free pools (mining software with failover ftw), if a fee'd pool has downtime the uproar is higher (as an example).
Also since I introduced fees to my pool I am seeing other no fee pools going through the same pain I did - trying to encourage "donations", work out ways to offer "premium features" to miners and other ways to get help funding their operation without introducing fees... because it isn't fee (cost) free to run a pool. After 14 months of offering fee free mining (and subsidising most of the miners on the pool) I came to a point where my choices were close the pool or introduce fees. To me it was a no-brainer, I would like to continue supporting Bitcoin in the ways I can - I introduced fees and copped some flak...

may I ask a question in return?
Why do so many high class restaurants exist when macdonalds is so cheap?
It is ok I answer it too
Some people are prepared to pay for quality

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110080.0 already has quite some discussion on this topic if you haven't seen I yet

best wishes
Graet

[Bitconian]

Graet... great answer

thx

[Shadow383]

Options like P2Pool may take a bit more work, but I think it's a no brainer to choose them.

If you like 5% orphans.

Really the only "no brainer" is pool hopping, or selling shares to hopping projects 

[Graet]

Graet... great answer

thx

happy to help
best wishes
Graet

[FbBitcoinLottery]

There is no real advantage of mining in one of those pools... your loss on stale shares and orphaned blocks is usually less than the fee % of other pools would be...

[Gabi]

Paying fees is idiot, you just give money to the pool owner and make him rich. Just join a 0% pool. And before someone start with "hurr durr but pool owner must pay for server and blablabla", then i suggest everyone using p2pool. You are the server 

[Shadow383]

Paying fees is idiot, you just give money to the pool owner and make him rich. Just join a 0% pool. And before someone start with "hurr durr but pool owner must pay for server and blablabla", then i suggest everyone using p2pool. You are the server 

What about people who don't like losing 5% to block orphans and having mega variance to boot? 

[Graet]

Paying fees is idiot, you just give money to the pool owner and make him rich. Just join a 0% pool. And before someone start with "hurr durr but pool owner must pay for server and blablabla", then i suggest everyone using p2pool. You are the server 

show me the pool operator getting rich
the only one I know of even claiming to make a living from Bitcoin is Tycho (making a living is far from being "rich")
I talk to a few regularly - I would be grateful if you could supply some information to back up your claims.
thanks
Graet

[Gabi]

Making a living just with pool fees? Lol, miners are truly fail these days, allowing him to live at their expenses

oh and orphan blocks doesn't justify so high fees, especially when the pool doesn't even pay the transaction fees. As for variance, p2pool doesn't have so high variance and anyway any miner mine 24/24 for weeks, so variance disappear.

I'm sorry but pool fees are only a way for pool owners to profit from the pool. Why should a miner mine for them? 

[caveden]

What is meant by orphans? 

It means that the block has no children blocks. (seriously, in bitcoin terminology, orphan == childless.. brilliant, isn't? )

[caveden]

Options like P2Pool may take a bit more work, but I think it's a no brainer to choose them.

If you like 5% orphans.

P2Pool loses 5% of its blocks?
That seems really high. Do you know why?

What's the average lost of other pools? Where do you get these statistics from?

Thanks.

[caveden]

I'm sorry but pool fees are only a way for pool owners to profit from the pool. Why should a miner mine for them? 

Keep in mind that, in the long run, "normal" people will not have the infrastructure necessary to run a full node. AFAIK, P2Pool requires you to run a full node. Centralized pools do not have such requirement.

Nothing stops a centralized pool to be part of P2Pool, though. That could be used as a way of saying "look, I follow P2Pool rules, so I can never cheat, not even if I happen to have >50%". But even in such context, the centralized pool would definitely need to make money somehow to pay for the infrastructure demanded by a full node, plus its profits.

[Graet]

Making a living just with pool fees? Lol, miners are truly fail these days, allowing him to live at their expenses

oh and orphan blocks doesn't justify so high fees, especially when the pool doesn't even pay the transaction fees. As for variance, p2pool doesn't have so high variance and anyway any miner mine 24/24 for weeks, so variance disappear.

I'm sorry but pool fees are only a way for pool owners to profit from the pool. Why should a miner mine for them?  

I am not asking you to mine anywhere you do not want to - I am asking for proof of your allegations
either show some proof or change your post.
thank you
Graet

edit:
I took a little time to look at numbers in another thread
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=110080.msg1206535#msg1206535

[chewie]

I don't mind paying a small fee, long as the pool offers great communication and amenities that alert me to the status of my miners.  I find this more important than no fees, and less features.

[tcp_rst]

Like some have said, there are a lot of factors.  I mine with slush as my primary pool.  Could I do better elsewhere?  Maybe.  But slush has proven himself extremely trustworthy, he contributes heavily to the bitcoin community and he runs a quality pool.  I've found in the world of bitcoin pools these things matter. That's not to say there aren't other stand-up pool ops out there--just saying there's more than pure earnings to consider.

[FreeMoney]

What is meant by orphans? 

It means that the block has no children blocks. (seriously, in bitcoin terminology, orphan == childless.. brilliant, isn't? )

Lol, indeed, ought be barren blocks.