Don't do cloud mining. Honestly it doesn't help the network in any way (doesn't decentralize mining), it doesn't make you a profit, it doesn't really teach you much about mining or hardware. All it is good for is graphs and eye candy interfaces. If you cloud mine you just end up making the cloud mining company richer.
Either buy mining equipment and hope for a profit (most likely it will a loss) or buy your coins directly and help support crypto by supporting crypto businesses or making your own.
I mined back in 2011 onwards, I don't understand what the fascination is with mining now - the money is gone.
This.
Mining should not be considered as an investment, since even if the coin's value increases, the reward will always be less than if you directly bought the coin. That's because the mining companies can get their equipment and electricity at a fraction of the price you would pay, thus all the profits will go to them and none are left for the small miners.
Mining is still important, though, if there's a PoW coin you want to support; but cloud mining is not a good way to do that since you have to trust an anonymous third party with your equipment.
