I have to agree...this is WAY overpriced. I could see spending $50-75 for the first kit maybe, which would include the more expensive parts that you'll be reusing later, then $20-25 a month after that, but $720 -$1080 for a year??? That's just insane. Any profit they're gaining from the high prices is costing them in lost volume.

I think what you pay for is not components, they have learning platform and tutorials and probably customer support.

Which means they lose the instant people realize they can DIY for a fraction of what they charge

But people like to pay for convenience, and this is convenient. You pay a monthly fee to receive a predetermined project, all the parts necessary to build it, an entire walk through equipped with videos/photo, and customer support.

Sure the price is inflated (for someone with the know-how) but for people interested in learning electronics, the all-in-one-delivered-monthly is a great sell until you grow out of it.

> Step 1: Buy Getting Started in Electronics by Forrest M. Mims

This is the defacto book for beginners but I've never really been able to parse the format. I've gone through a lot of books and none seem to match the approach (gently, less formal) with some formatting that is easy to ingest.

I do love the Launchpads, and they were a ton of fun to use (the IDE is a beast, though). I'd say starting with Arduino or a Pi before a microcontroller is a natural step for beginners, though.

Arduinos are microcontrollers... but I get what you're saying, a more beginner-friendly microcontroller stack.

You can run Arduino sketches on Launchpads, fyi.

An esp8266 Arduino Uno form factor breakout is even cheaper ($3.6 shipped), and comes with wifi, and works with the extraordinarily simple Arduino IDE (and all of the related libraries, tutorials, etc)