The reason people join pools is to make money even if you never personally mine a coin. In a pool you just get paid for your effort. This is why joining a pool with consumer hardware will always lose.

In this case we aren't talking about pools!

There is two things that can happen when you solo mine - you either "lose it all" (all money spent on electricity down the drain) or "hit the jackpot," (1 full Bitcoin all for you!)

At that level with a small hash rate its gambling, you're throwing some amount of money at it at the very, very tiny chance of a big payout.

Say, for example, there's a 1/10000 chance any one person will mine a coin on consumer hardware per every $100 in electricity. So you're buying a $100 lottery ticket where the payout is $17,000.

Of course you "can't make money like that," the vast majority of people will lose money, just like the majority of lottery players will lose money.