so why do people buy these contracts?
The only way I can see it 'could' be beneficial is if you purchased a contract some time in the future at a fixed price, and by the time your mining contract begins the value of bitcoin has risen significantly and outweighs the cost of the contract - or is that the point, like some sort of gamble?
Exactly...
You purchase those contracts because you think mining will be profitable in the future and you lack both the cheap energy and space or knowledge or time to set your own mining gear. Plus, lately, you can't buy new and performant gear for a few hundred $ you need a bit more, with contracts, it's more flexible.
And yeah, contracts are purchased on a fixed amount of time at a fixed price.
I don't know if there still a legit business now that offers cloud mining but in general, it has a very bad reputation, so stay away. Investing in bitcoin or other potential coins would be better than risking your money in cloud mining.
I have seen that Viabtc offers it but it says that it's sold out. You can calculate how much profit would be.
https://www.viabtc.com/contract/pricingAlthough I'm going to hate myself for this in the morning, there is also bitdeer, the farm that is equipped and run by bitmain.
As much as I hate Bitmain in general it would be better if newbies would put their money here instead of other scams that are simply ponzi schemes.
or use solar panels, it will incur heavy cost at the beginning but later on there's no more cost.
And what do you do at night?