It was my understanding that doing this contributes to the decentralized character of Bitcoin and helps confirm transactions (I may be wrong). If so, this is now nolonger something mortals can do. Yeah, perhaps, call it altruism. I contribute some CPU cycles on my server to balance the power of the network. Or am I misunderstanding? Is it all about the miners?
Bitcoin mining is dominated by ASIC farms. You'd make more of a difference running a node for an ASIC-resistant coin. (Or by saving energy and not mining at all.)