That is in my opinion an overly simplistic way of looking at it. First of all, many people (myself included) would not want to have to burn electricity in orde

That is in my opinion an overly simplistic way of looking at it. First of all, many people (myself included) would not want to have to burn electricity in order to offset the increased price. Even if you disregard the obvious environmental reasons, people sleeping close to their computers simply do not have the choice of leaving it running 24/7 unless they want to have vivid dreams about vacuum cleaners every night. Second, even if the higher prices can be evened out in the long run from mining, this forces people to pay more money up-front in both hardware and electricity. Buying gaming equipment suddenly became an investment.