That's the point with most ASICs coming out to market, they are already obsolete by the time you put them to work, that's why is so hard-almost impossible to get ROI from those devices (specially if you live in remote areas, where shipping cost is ridiculous, customs charge you a lot more "just in case", and on top of that they also calculate the percentage "including" the shipping cost!, also the mail usually lost you packages and you lost weeks trying to figure it out where it is or what branch has you package, and I can keep on and on.
If I can purchase an ASIC BEFORE it becomes obsolete, I could probably make money out of it, but in the present climax, with preorders, and shippings that they first ship to US customers, then the rest of the world, the rest of the world is fucked UP, period.
I doesn't happens with GPU, I am a big client from a local distributor and when I request something, i got priority and get the packages first, so for me, get the newest GPU is easy and it takes less than a WEEK.
someone here said: ASIC killed bitcoin, I don't think so, but I am sure that ASIC wanted to kill the MINER, and the miner is the one who support the network, nobody likes the miner, but without him/her the network will not exists, so he is got a point!.
no wonder how doge is growing... and probably VTC, looks promising.
You make good points. I see the problems with ASIC's currently as growing pains. And obsolescence is not necessarily the same as lack of utility. My '97 Caravan is definitely obsolete, but far from useless.
So far, the market has chosen Bitcoin as top dog, which is SHA-256, and LTC and DOGE seem to also be very successful outside of "just" the crypto community, and they are both Scrypt.
So it appears that both paradigms are viable, and as for ASIC's killing the small miner, I don't think that's the case. The network was going to grow, by design. If it didn't, then the experiment would have already been a failure. That it's growing differently to what was originally envisioned is just the way it is. You can't plan the future, you can only plan for the future. It has gotten to the point that the HOBBY miner is unlikely to turn a profit, but hobbies are usually not about making money anyway. But small scale businesses based on ASIC miners are not out of reach. You may have to set up in an office or workshop for power requirements now, but that is not a killer. It is a higher barrier to entry, but not a killer.
Even given that, it's also becoming true of LTC. You want a farm of GPU's, you're gonna be sucking power at a prodigious rate. Which leads to the same conclusion. "Alt" scrypts will still be profitable from home for a while, but that depends largely on trade FOR LTC and BTC, so it's again a "hobby" thing for the most part.
As you noted, where GPU's shine over ASIC's is availability. That likely will get sorted. Bitcoin ASIC's haven't been live very long, and GPU's have. Give it time. I think the preorder game has almost run its course, as people are sick of waiting for their machines. I didn't play that game, and I won't, so it doesn't affect me negatively. The companies that deliver stock on hand are NOT hurting for customers, and their prices are not outrageous.
I got more, but I have to leave
Interesting thread.
