As a counter example, I bought a $100 camera from a pharmacy when I was 15 that took low to mid quality photos and I was so happy with it. I learned about focus, bokeh, framing, etc despite having like 6 preset settings, and that got me into photography. Later I bought a low end DSLR and took 1000 pictures a day during the summer.
For wood carving a $60 set of knives was enough to get me into the hobby, now I get to spend too much money on stuff.
Cheap options can be very helpful to find out if you like something.
There is some minimum that seems to work well enough in a lot of hobbies. Can’t always go for the cheapest, but you may not have to go that high, either.
Amateur astronomers tend to hate on Walmart telescopes, and there are reasons for that. Still, the optics in any of them are better than Galileo had, and he saw a lot (admittedly, he also didn’t have a hopelessly light polluted sky). It’s a matter of setting expectations.
A $25 Baofang can get you into amateur radio after getting your technician license. There’s even a version now that doesn’t spew spurious emissions on harmonic frequencies and fuck things up for everyone else.
I once traded a somewhat older GPU for a fretless bass, amp, and effect pedal. The guy had just moved, his GPU died, and seemed like he wanted to get rid of some of his stash. While that was an exception, there’s probably some guitar guy in your city that wants to clear some stuff out and is willing to make a deal.
As a counter example, I bought a $100 camera from a pharmacy when I was 15 that took low to mid quality photos and I was so happy with it. I learned about focus, bokeh, framing, etc despite having like 6 preset settings, and that got me into photography. Later I bought a low end DSLR and took 1000 pictures a day during the summer.
For wood carving a $60 set of knives was enough to get me into the hobby, now I get to spend too much money on stuff.
Cheap options can be very helpful to find out if you like something.
There is some minimum that seems to work well enough in a lot of hobbies. Can’t always go for the cheapest, but you may not have to go that high, either.
Amateur astronomers tend to hate on Walmart telescopes, and there are reasons for that. Still, the optics in any of them are better than Galileo had, and he saw a lot (admittedly, he also didn’t have a hopelessly light polluted sky). It’s a matter of setting expectations.
A $25 Baofang can get you into amateur radio after getting your technician license. There’s even a version now that doesn’t spew spurious emissions on harmonic frequencies and fuck things up for everyone else.
I once traded a somewhat older GPU for a fretless bass, amp, and effect pedal. The guy had just moved, his GPU died, and seemed like he wanted to get rid of some of his stash. While that was an exception, there’s probably some guitar guy in your city that wants to clear some stuff out and is willing to make a deal.