what if you will be using solar and other forms of free energy to mine a crypto? and what if you use your mining equipment with care like you will turn it off once you feel it was over heating, only to relax the machine so that it can last longer. That should lessen the expense of mining. Mining can still be better than buying a btc if things done right.
For an average joe that is afraid to take risk and have a very limited knowledge, they probably avoid mining even if they didn't understand it properly or didn't prove to themselves that mining is truly hard or unprofitable than simply buying a btc but anyone can still lose even if they just simply buy and hodl a btc.
There is no "free" electricity. If you are using solar, then that is energy that you are producing and if you use that for mining, you are still using it, you could have sold it, or used it for something else. Just because you are not paying for it, doesn't mean that it is not getting taken out of your pocket.
You could make $100 per month by selling it, or you could decide to use that to mine $150 bitcoin instead, depends on your own decision. Of course, $150 looks like a better deal, but in the end the machines could break down for no reason, or you could have flood, or you could just get raided and all of your machines stolen, plenty of possible things that could go wrong.
