I did my research on staking some time back and it looked like something that I will be willing to try in the future. However all of the modes of earning passive income have risks even staking. For example, due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies and fall in price will easily outweigh the rewards that the individual can earn from staking. In addition, the counterparty risk. I think I will be able to take on the other risks of minimum lock up and the waiting period for each blockchain to get back my coins but can bear the former. I think that Crypto lending bears the same risks but it is even better than staking.
Yeah staking has some risks but I think there's an innovative method of it rn.
PoolX Op mentioned something similar. APr recorded is pretty good too in a short while and it's flexible.
Staking is profitable if the coins you are dealing with has an upward growth. Otherwise, you will just be wasting your resources and will wait for negative ROI. That is the dilemma of most stakers as well as farmers, if the coin or token is not increasing its value, you will be on the negative end of this endeavour.