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So it seems the idea is you spend $400 to get a Bitcoin machine and then you have 25 cents to spend each day on news articles, apps or music in some effortless or 'identityless' way.

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My theory is that their real motivation is to ensure that there continues to be a robust mining ecosystem when the block reward falls off to the point that nobody wants to mine anymore without high transaction fees. So they proliferate a bunch of low cost mining gadgets that people will use primarily for the convenience it offers in making micropayments and in verifying identity, while they also do mining to ensure the health of the network but not actually make any significant money for the owner.

This would be the first iteration of their first gadget, which isn't cheap yet but could be if volumes are high enough, and future iterations would be cheaper and better.

The identity feature is my speculation based on tweets by the CEO about the need for better identity solutions and the enormous market for solving identity fraud problems. Not sure how a gadget like this addresses that but I think it is part of their plan.

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