Expensive? Maybe. Though it's kind of reasonable as long as you stay in the ecosystem Minergate-Freewallet-Changelly; little to no transaction fees in this system. I did not find a switch in Freewallet to control transaction fees, though. It's kind of expensive, even if it is ok for me if my transactions are delayed by a week or so.

Scam? Doesn't feel like one. Moving funds out of Minergate every once in a while, sometimes get interrupted and funds are still around weeks later. Can withdraw to Wallets outside said ecosystem; though I'm doing small sums there -- I can't tell if there's a hidden switch keeping only funds that are above a certain treshold, are transferred at full moon or whatever.

You're free to use an expensive service but if it's declared up front, it's not a scam

(and just about any platform providing free transfers between users has all funds in one wallet and transfers by changing fund allocation in its own database, skipping the part where the blockchain thingy gets involved... Pro: cheap transfers, Con: one system get's owned, all funds are gone. Happened before, will happen again.)

Went through that when I first entered this realm. Bought ... and minutes later, value dropped by 25%. Went through that and even if I sold now, I'd have made +400% or something

I was like "Crap! I bought just enough to pass it through to a mining pool to get my first shares. F*#§ this whole thing, I'm quitting right now and that's it." ... I didn't

...that's the way to go if you start from nearly zero. Find some way to get a foot into the door and keep re-investing until you can withdraw some funds without doing to much harm to future revenue. Unless you're about to withdraw an amount that would significantly impact your life, you're probably better off doing the re-invest thingy once more (we're talking about half an hour a week, tops. If you can't afford that kind of time, you're in serious trouble without cryptos ).

Starting from absolutely nothing? Been there and last thing I cared about was where to find access to a computer.

Starting from a tight paycheck, and having access to at least one computer? Yes, that's the route I took once I got back into a somewhat stable situation: Find a mining pool, download its software and hit a lucky moment (one evening last summer, Bytecoin spiked. My supply of 6,500 BCN was suddenly worth not €5.-- but almost €25. I used this pools' tools to convert do Bitcoin and buy into some cloud mining). Out of this cloud mining contract, I've received 0.0145 BTC  which I diversified into a small portfolio worth something like €300, after today's loss of market cap.

What I've achieved is definitely not "making a living" out of crypto coins -- but €300 from scratch within half a year seems a fair deal to me.