I'm actually downplaying the difficulty increase by assuming 5% as you can see quite clearly here. Over the past 3 months, the average difficulty increase has been about 11% per round. Over the past 6 months, the average difficulty increase has been around 8% per round and over the past 12 months it's been about 12% per round.

Does that mean it going to be over 5% on average for the next year? Of course not. But given the history, it's better to assume that it will be rather that assuming it won't based on "gut feelings" and "wishful thinking".

To claim that cloud mining is profitable is nothing but a flat out lie.