So is it even possible for a company to profitably offer their customers a non-money-losing contract? Perhaps maybe in the future when mining industry matures?
Just trying to figure out whether the "mining contract" business model is even possible to legitimately and profitably offer?
I assume there could be, if some of the factors Bit_Happy stated are present.
However, lacking any such "good Samaritans" that i.e. would honestly share the profits 50:50, you're left with the cloud mining services that tilt the profit table pretty far to their side - leaving nothing but losses for you. Everything observed so far was optimized to absolutely maximize their profits at the cost of the customers.
As said, the only one apparently getting close to such operations smells like a ponzi scheme that would collapse as soon as the operators see the right time to pull the plug.
It's sad to see - but the Bitcoin world generally isn't a nice social place (in that respect not unlike most money places). Most of the activity focuses around making profit off others by any means, be it legal, semi-legal (skinning) or outright scam/ponzi or theft. BTC possibly reintroduced the world to the term "greater fool economy" in its own, special way. It certainly did its best to take the term "counterparty risk" to a whole new quality.