If you "do it yourself" what would the net profit be including the cost of hardware and electricity?

That question is as impossible to answer as "if I started an apple orchard how profitable would that be".

Why? Assume that the value of these altcoins do not change, and see how many you can mine given a certain amount of time. The value of altcoins could very well go down, but for the sake of demonstration you could still calculate a very rough estimate, no?

> Assume that the value of these altcoins do not change, and see how many you can mine given a certain amount of time. The value of altcoins could very well go down, but for the sake of demonstration you could still calculate a very rough estimate, no?

And likewise if you assume values for the cost of apple seeds land, see how many apples you can grow given a certain amount of time - and the value of apples could very well go down - but for the sake of demonstration you can also calculate a very rough estimate of apple orchard profitability, no?

> Assume that the value of these altcoins do not change

Assume a perfectly spherical cow, emitting milk equally in all directions...

One problem is that the cost of electricity varies enormously. In some times and places it can cost many times the average. In others it can be literally free.

whattomine.com

Unless you have free/ very cheap power, is likely not worth your time.

I guess this is great for contemporary squatters: steal electricity from the grid, get paid for the electricity used to heat your squat, by mining and selling bitcoin...

Is there any better alternative that offers similar simplicity?

NiceHash