Newbie Introduction/ASICMiner Erupter USB Question

[subarct1c]

I've been surfing these forums for awhile now but never bothered to make an account as I never had anything to include in a post or any questions that weren't already answered here.

Lately I have been looking into purchasing a few of the ASICMiner Erupter USB's from one of the group buys on the forums which made me realize I actually need an account to do so. I wanted to pose the question here to see if they are even worth purchasing and if so who people here tend to trust with the purchases.

Thanks in advanced!

[1714809248]

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[1714809248]

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[jago25_98]

I did a group buy. I trusted because there was use of PGP and so forth signing who gets what etc.

I did only buy 1 though.

What I don't understand is why people get them. They're about $90 for one and I make about $0.03 cents merged mining off of mine which I expect probably doesn't cover the cost of electric running off a Raspberry Pi so there's need to have use of whatever system it's plugged into or buy more of them.

Surely all these people buying so many of them are making a loss.

It's a funny thing how the mining has changed. We started off in a decentralised manner with everybody able to mine and now it's more a case of - can you find the ASIC cheaper and before everybody else does (BFL probably the winner here).

Anyone with a Erupter seems to me to be supporting the decentralisaton but its at a cost to them. hmm... this is weakening BTC don't we think?