I think holding is better then mining and facing different types of problems and pay a charge every month. But i dont understand why people are afyer Mining.
In some rare cases, mining is a lot more profitable than HODLing, remember that mining generates passive bitcoin, hodling does not (unless you are farming it in some stupid shit), so if you can buy 1
BTC worth gears today, and end up with say 1.5
BTC after 12 months, hell ya that beats "hodl", but you need a streak of luck, cheap gear, good quality gear, cheap power rate and great timing for entry.
The sad truth is that most newbies buy the wrong gear for the wrong price at the worst time possible.