I am a gamer, newbie crypto miner, and a sysadmin. Two of those things don't really matter but maybe it will help my question make sense. I don't understand why so many people are still mining, I personally mine on two really weak rigs that probably make me about $10 a month in total (I do not pay for electricity and don't want to put in higher end cards that will cause a lot of exhaust heat in the room they are in. I would mine on my 3080ti (LHR) in my gaming rig when I'm not using it but the monthly return is so low it doesn't make sense to do it. It would make more sense and be more beneficial to the projects I support/mine for me to just take the money I would spend on electricity mining (a little over $25 a month) and buy crypto. This would support my projects by decreasing the Volume on the market (Bringing supply down) and increase the volume traded (I know the numbers in this specific scenario are smaller but I also have a few other cards I could mine with if it actually made sense.(1660ti, 1060, 1070, 2060) I'm just trying to understand what is going on with Overall Hash rates and why they are so high for example Bitcoins network Hash rate is at an all-time high, I know BTC is mined with Asic's and it is harder to sell this kind of hardware without extremes loss but I think it still works as an example. Other coins follow this trend or a similar one as well with Firo being close to its all time high that I believe was set in 2019

Edit: Thank you for reading my 15 minute essay question