Ethereum will be profitable or not depends on at what price you have bought it. Last year Ethereum went below 1000$ in the mid of year, anyone who has bought eth at that price is in profitable at the moment. This is very much true that price of all Alts including Ethereum is binded with bitcoin price moment. Ethereum can go up provided bitcoin also go up. There won't be any solo Ethereum flight.
I think patience when investing in ethereum is really needed, considering that this altcoin is the closest to bitcoin, so in terms of security, this altcoin is the safest in my opinion, and also if we can wait a long time with no certainty of time, I think profits will be easy to achieve . for example we buy now, then the possibility to fly is still open, considering that bitcoin has seen a recovery, although no one knows whether this is a correction or not
Not only with Ethereum but all cryptos requires it especially now that we are still in a bear market but if you don't have a patience, you can always switch to trading and just make use of the price fluctuations that happens from time to time. Bitcoin and altcoin are not the same, so don't say ETH is close to Bitcoin. ETH is actually the king of altcoins.
With that kind of reputation, we are sure that we are safe with ETH. Long term investment is not easy but there are measures that we can do to kill the boredom. About BTC, that the drop that it happened lately is only a correction. Once it's done, BTC will continue to increase and ETH can surely follow its path.