Mining rig scam?

[Tobias]

I am new to bitcoin mining hence the newbie forum, but I was just wondering if a company like butterfly labs could make a 600 gh/s piece of equipment for under 5000$ why wouldn't they just mine with it themselves and make countless times more money than they would by selling them? It seems really fishy to me.

[Foxpup]

For the rather obvious reason that mining isn't a sure way to make money (bitcoin price may crash, difficulty could increase dramatically, other unforeseen events may happen), while selling miners is a sure thing. In a gold rush, it's not the miners who get rich, but the guys selling shovels.

[Tobias]

For the rather obvious reason that mining isn't a sure way to make money (bitcoin price may crash, difficulty could increase dramatically, other unforeseen events may happen), while selling miners is a sure thing. In a gold rush, it's not the miners who get rich, but the guys selling shovels.

That's what I always say, and I am trying to think of a new "shovel" to sell, but the amount of money they would make is ridiculous and they could have earned back their investment tenfold by now