Science & Industry

There are several potential reasons.

One of the goals of Crius' manufacturing changes was to make industry's options much richer, so it's possible there may be a combination of refining, system costs, and teams that will allow production at a profit.

Related to this, whenever there are changes to manufacturing that are predicted to raise costs, those who can predict the changes stockpile production. Some assets are very durable (battleship hulls for example) which are pretty rare in PVP since the warp changes, so their main use is by fairly experienced PvE players who use them to make ISK (and thus don't lose them very often). Because of their durability, the stockpiles produced before the extra materials were removed from the game (quite a while ago) remain today and keep prices below production cost.

Next, for many, many modules mission runners produce meta modules that are better than T1 and cheaper (because a large group of mission runners will collect many more modules than a similar sized group of miners can produce in the same amount of time). While there are some uses for T1 modules (namely inputs to T2 production) where meta modules can't substittue, this precludes most T1 modules from being included in ships that blow up frequently. The few niches where meta modules are rare (mining laser upgrades) or don't exist (drone upgrades are an example), and the modules are used are some of the few areas where isk can be made in T1 production.

Finally, some sellers of goods consider only the isk costs of production when setting prices (the common game expression to describe these folks is, "the minerals I mine are free"), rather than their full opportunity cost. They also serve to keep margins under production costs. One of the Crius manufacturing changes was a large reduction in the barriers to entry to production (losing 25% to waste or training a 3x skill to level 5 reduced the number of low opportunity cost sellers to some extent). They now require minimal skills.

To make money in manufacturing, it always helps to figure out who uses what you are planning to produce, and find ways to deliver your production to them (this is what we mean by find a niche). A very commonly cited example would be bringing the right kinds of ammunition to mission running hubs (that means figuring out what kinds of ammo mission runners need, and having it where they use it). There's a cost associated with going to the nearest hub to buy something needed, so it's entirely possible to find a profitable product and area that's currently under served.

It's generally pointless to produce T1 items as the majority of these items are produced below the cost you can hope to achieve. This is because the T1 producers have better skills, standings, and better researched BPOs (now teams, and stations with low cost). Mining doesn't actually make you more isk either, because you should be able to sell the ore for more than you can refine it. Again this is because most refiners have better standings, skills...

There are exceptions to the above if you are far enough away from a trade hub. It might be profitable to refine your ore or buy minerals/ore from local miners to produce goods for local use. I find that moderately popular mission running hubs, Low Sec/Null Sec enterances, or mining system that are more than 5 gates away from a trade hub will happy accept a 20% markup, and a 10% mark down selling ore/mission loot/salvage. The trick is to find the system, figure out what sells, and what people want to sell to you. (For example if the local rats are Sansha ratters and mission runners will have lots of laser crystals and laser weapons to sell, and few buyers.) Also I find it's profitable to manufacturer via found blueprints from exploration as selling the blue print via contracts is a pain outside a trade hub while the item produce sells for a nice markup locally.

The say T2 production is more profitable but you need to skill up, research blueprints, and avoid items where the price is determined by production with legacy BPOs.


PS- Really you should only be mining when you are bored and have nothing else better to do. I often mine in high sec while kicking back watching TV, in a meet for work via phone, or piloting another account 20-30 jumps. Other wise mining is a very low isk per hour reward, and a poor fun per hour reward. Mining in LS, NS, or WH is more exciting as every so often people attempt to kill you, but it's not more profitable in general.

Then don't build those rigs.

My last batch of T1 modules earned me ~20% (~200m) after buying the materials in Jita, and selling the modules there.

There are profitable items. The trick is in finding them.

I typically start by using common sense. For example:
* How many rigs per ship are you gonna sell? (max 3x, max 2x on T2 ships)
* How common are they? (armor tanks only, and only certain fits)
* How common are the BPO? (rig BPO are inexpensive, and require little research, so high availability)
... and so forth.

Then there is the market prices and trade volumes to check BEFORE you manufacture anything!