Yes I believe there is an inflation share that is spilt between the people who have bought into the m'ining farm'. No hardware required for the PALM and PALMM buyers, you just need to stake them in your wallet like the PAL tokens (for curation rewards).

When PAL was low (0.05 - .10), buying PAL was likely the better option, but as the price continues to rise, mining could be better. Just my thinking though, and so far I'm not convinced about the miners as it's impossible to work out how much PAL they are providing per 'unit'.