I don't expect to make a profit on cloudmining.  But I would like to use it as a slow way to convert fiat money to BTC.  As long as the conversion rate is competitive with BTM machines, I am happy.  Unfortunately, most cloudmining requires you to pay in BTC - and that is just silly.  It's like giving them a negative interest loan (as you correctly point out).

The other thing I want is to choose the mining pool my rented mining hardware is contributing to.  Then I can monitor the contribution of my rented rig (and whether and how long it is down).

Naturally there needs to be some sort of waiting period with escrow when paying by CC - until the transaction is final.