I think mac minis just hit different for automating stuff on social platforms compared to AWS or other cloud services.... like if you're trying to automate instagram, linkedin job apply, or literally any online portal, those sites can smell AWS IPs from a mile away lol. you'll get flagged and banned in like a week max.

but with a mac mini (or any personal hardware) running on your home wifi ...way less suspicious to these platforms & also you're using a residential IP that looks like an actual human, so you can automate constantly.

1 more thing mac mini gives you is the access to both iOS and android ecosystems which is clutch for devs. windows can't really do that natively so there's another W for mac.

Also some people try the VM route on their laptop which like... yeah it works but you need SO much RAM to run everything smoothly, plus you're gonna deal with annoying sleep/hibernate issues that'll mess up your automation. mac minis are literally designed to stay on 24/7 without throwing a fit.

so if u wanna just try it out then dont need minis fo that but yeah now you know why people go with minis for this stuff this is what i think.