The cost of buying cryptocurrency directly is too high, and the investment in mining is still much less than that of buying cryptocurrency directly. We have to control costs and risks
This is incorrect. Example: a S19 Bitcoin miner costs currently $10,000 and performs with 100THash/sec and pulls about 3200 Watt (a bit more than advertised)
Let's say you would invest the $10K today in BTC , that would give you 0.2 BTC which would appreciate in price over time
After deducting the electricity your miner would produce only 0.00052684 per day
let's assume the difficulty would stay the same (which is not realistic) you would need to mine for 379 days until you break even and make your 0.2 BTC back.
In the meantime you have to deal with cooling, noise levels and maintenance
And this is the best case scenario with one of the best performing BTC miners. If you have a lower performing model, it will take exponentially longer to make your money back - if ever.
Plus realistically: with increasing price and upcoming better performing chips the network hash rate will go up and your rewards will be reduced over time.
So no, if it was for the pure investment purpose you are better off buying the currency directly.
Miners want to support the network, helping to keep a stable decentralization and in return they are getting some rewards. Although it is a business, it is a different philosophy than direct investments.