Been there for about 2 years. I don't think I'm coming back any time soon though. EVE is perhaps best described as Second Life in Space. You either commit to it, or you get bored pretty damn soon because when you get tired of some activities, you realize that even something as casual (by game's standards) as a fleet with Bombers Bar requires you to commit about 4 hours, and then you don't always have tagets... Well, you know.
It's good for what it is though. If what you are looking for is an escapism trip, then that's perfect one
Now, to each his own, but may I suggest that mining doesn't transition well into something "bigger"? You see, you are competing with ISBoxing crowd that run up to 100 (yes, you've heard it right; it's rare, and usually it's about a dozen ships, but it's still quite a lot if you think about it) accounts per player to cleanup rocks. What does it mean? Cheap (in terms of effort) workforce. Even when you are top-tier miner, you are getting paid only a small fraction of what a hour of your attention actually worth because of the way market price is established.
If all you are looking for is ISK (if not, it's ok - you do what you want, that's kinda the point of the game), consider this:
Last time I checked, you're getting 10-12 mil/hour in hisec at most (more in null - if you aren't locked down by reds), while casual mission runner gets about 40-60 mil/hour in the very same hisec, beginner incursion runner gets about 60 mil/hour (seasoned one gets 100+ mil/hour). If you feel like dualboxing, missions can get you about 150+ mil/hour. Farming missions in FW zones gets you a lot more.
I won't even start talking about high-class wormhole dwellers who can't farm all day because their sites don't respawn fast enough, but they fly and welp T3s like nobody's business (1,5 bil a pop on average), so you get the idea.
Best part? Mining skills let you mine, but nothing else, miner character transition poorly and so are mining corps (they require some SP-heavy support characters and logistics dedicated to mining, something that can hardly be applied somewhere else unless it's freight department). Combat skills, on the other hand, let you do everything above, PvP and PvE I didn't mentioned (exploration and anom farming).
I mean, ore is the blood of EVE, but in the world of bots and ISBoxers mining on one account is like carrying oil in buckets when there are pipelines, trains and tankers around - waste of manpower and Mankind's Promise
In the end, you do what's fun, but when it comes to paying for what's fun, there's something to consider.
P.S. I have 2 Steam "copies" of EVE if someone is interested.
