Upvoted because I was going to mention the guitar as an example. High action makes it very difficult for beginners to get a decent sound – particularly if they’re trying to change chords while keeping time. The learning curve for guitar is already steep enough and a cheap guitar could easily put off a beginner and lead them to believe that they are not cut out for playing the instrument.

I’d also add sporting equipment such as mountain bikes to the list. A bike that is marketed as a “mountain bike” may be fine for cycling on paved surfaces but not be entry-level for actual mountain-biking, i.e., be very unpleasant – or downright dangerous – for off-road cycling.

My strategy for starting new hobbies is to research as much as possible, talk to friends who are already past the beginner stage and – if possible – borrow equipment from those friends. After that, try to buy second-hand. Whether or not you keep up the hobby, you can sell on the original equipment. And if you decide to keep with it, you have a better idea of what you want/need when upgrading.

> Sometimes you don't know what the minimum viable is because you are a beginner and don't know yourself well in that field.

+1.

Although the saying is "a bad workman always blames his tools", but I often heard the notion that a beginner should be trained using tools and equipment of decent quality, so it doesn't mislead the beginner or interfere with the learning process. After one has mastered the skill, one may choose something worse later on if budget is an issue. At this point, the limitation of the tool is more tolerable, since you already know how a task is supposed to be done properly, you only need to overcome the deviations.

Of course, this strategy is more suitable to the trainer than the trainee - it can only save money for you when you are trained at workplaces or institutions, where you don't need to pay for the equipment...

>In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running.

It seems like you're drawing a direct causal relationship to what is a very complex chain of events over a long period of time. How can you be sure the problems would not have arisen regardless of what tool (shoe) you originally bought?

I can't be sure it wouldn't have arisen, but it has indeed been confirmed to me more than once (kinesiologist, physiotherapist) that the shoes had been problematic because they led to wrong posture correction and that led to a transfer of energy (post absorption) to the wrong places. There is more than one way to that things could have been better, for example I could have strengthened my muscles on either side of the knee to hold it in place or I could have practiced the correct posture without shoes, but ultimately the shoes were both a major part of the problem and also the only thing that I, as a beginner, was able to focus on and do something about.. until it was a bit too late, and I was going to clinics to figure out why that pain was present. Which is kind of my point: as a beginner you're not knowing yourself or the field well enough to know better.

I had a similar experience learning the piano when I was a kid. Understandably, my parents started me out with a cheap $100 electric keyboard, which was good enough for the first year or so of practice. As I improved, though, it became a big hindrance to my progress, as 1) the keys were unweighted, 2) the speakers couldn't accurately produce high/low notes, and 3) the keys were slightly smaller than the standard size. Practicing at home was too different from the real piano I used a lessons, so I started to feel really discouraged.

I was too young to understand quite what the problem was, or to save up enough money on my own to upgrade, so I ended up quitting lessons altogether.

This seems like a vote to follow the advice of the post (as does the comment you replied to). You bought the cheap one first, but you didn’t buy the upgrade when it made sense.

Exactly! Unfortunately as a small child it was out of my hands :(

Hey, just as a long-term advanced guitarist, you should look into getting a professional fret-job/setup for your cheapo guitar first rather than buying a higher end model. You'll save a significant amount of cash that way even if it's a couple hundred dollars to get a quality setup from a good tech.

Or if you're really dedicated to saving money, you can always pick up the almost entirely separate hobby of doing guitar setups yourself, but that's probably not worth it at your current stage, based on how you've described yourself.

Thanks for the advice. I'm far from being a good guitarist but I've been playing for over 15 years now so thankfully I've managed to learn a thing or two about at least the minor improvements that can change a lot of things, so I've adjusted the action myself as well as any problematic fret (thankfully there weren't too many - it's easy to overdo any adjustment when it compounds..)

In the case of this guitar though, it was really the cheapest thing out there because I am on a budget (and a really tight one), so any real work done on it would cost more than a few times the guitar itself and more than I can afford to dedicate to it. My actual guitars are an ocean away for the time being, but I'll still get them back eventually. In the meantime I have a nice decorative thingy I can pick up sometimes, and I try to remind myself that now that I'm "more experienced" I should take this as a challenge rather than an excuse.

It sounds like you're the type of person to blame external factors for your own issues. Nothing you're saying counters the original advice.

Additionally, in the guitar example, you learned how to play and learned what it meant to own a decent guitar. Then, when presented with the opportunity to buy a new guitar: bought a crappy one, ignoring everything you had already learned about the instrument.

Given that you were so easily discouraged from learning the guitar, it's also equally likely that it wasn't something you were truly passionate about and gave yourself an excuse at every turn as to why you weren't progressing.

> Nothing you're saying counters the original advice.

The original advice was to buy the cheapest thing and just use it. GP's advice was "Sometimes you don't know what the minimum viable is because you are a beginner and don't know yourself well in that field."

GP then gave specific examples of cheap products that aren't particularly suitable for beginners: (1) cheap running shoes that lead to bad habits and possible injuries and (2) cheap guitars that are difficult to play. For both examples, he described how as a beginner he lacked the experience to know what he needed.