Mine for a year vs buy right now

Ive been doing a little mining with some idle equipment, however the numbers just do not add up.

If I invest in a few rigs (or even many) and mine for a year, no matter how you cut it, I will do better if I just spend the cash I would have on the rigs to buy Zcash today! Meaning, I will have about the same ZEC on day one, with no expenses, than I would after a year of mining (assuming the network does not change significantly).

There is so mush risk in mining, network hash rate goes up, currency goes down, difficulty goes up, equipment life, power rates, to name a few. I get the support the whole crypto network thing, but if I am serious about getting into crypto currency, why would I mine instead of just buy?

What am I missing? How are people justifying getting into mining? Only justification I can see is deducting the equipment costs from my taxes.

the fact that you can resell the mining equipment once zcash becomes obsolete and make your initial investment back or some of it, buying now for keeps would be stupid why would you invest in an unstable crypto that right now has no future it drops every day in price, without a stable price, the only reason people mine zcash now is to pump and dump into other alt coins.

Yes crypto is a risk but with mining you support the network and mitigate your risk with mining and always factor in resale value when making calculations for investments