I understand your sentiment, but: Bitaxe has an asymmetric lottery ticket bet. The idea is to be able to solo mine, which you wouldn't do with an S9 unless you got the monies to blow on electric. If enough of us solo mine we will find blocks & that is decentralization at it's finest. Most importantly, you would be aiding in the development of Open Source mining hardware, instead of living in defeat to Chinese centralized hardware manufacturing. I think all this together proves its worth, thanks for your honesty!

Yup. I get all that, but... I'm subsidizing my heating bill in the winter and eventually my hot water.