Grip and imparting spin are important for letting you control the ball, but it's also a double edged sword. It's easy to get someone who doesn't know how to counteract spin to hit the ball into the net or miss the table entirely if their paddle has some grip. Inexperienced players are thus often better off with the cheap paddles -- they don't know how to use it to their advantage, so they're better off being immune to its effects.
That reminds me of the "expert beginner" posted and discussed on HackerNews not too long ago: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th... That is, cheap equipment can be a local optima that players can get stuck in.
Disclaimer: I'm a novice.
I had the exact same comment. Luckily with skiing you can often try hire skis for a day rather than committing to purchasing expensive kit. You may also benefit from advances in ski tech rather than being locked in for years to an expensive early purchase. This happened to me when carving skis replaced the long straight and stiff skis that were prevalent when I started.
Ski boots, however, are a different story, especially if you have non-standard feet (e.g. flat arches, wide toes, etc). After a couple of painful early holidays with ill-fitting boots, often selected quickly in a busy hire shop, I purchased a reasonably expensive pair with a customised fit and the difference in comfort was astounding. In practical terms I could ski 'til the end of the day without getting painful feet.
As a general rule I disagree. If beginners don't feel the difference, that's because they only used the $100 equipment, they would be better off with the $1000 one.
I first noticed that with skis. I am not a great skier by any mean, but just for kicks I tried renting the best equipment I could find and wow, what a difference it made. Everything was so much more precise. Obviously, I made many mistakes, but the outcome became clearer and more repeatable. I knew how I was wrong and it helped me improve. Poor quality equipment muddy things up, so it might feel like it is more forgiving (more on that later) but in reality, its just blends its own shortcoming with yours so you never know what went wrong, especially if you are a beginner and can't trust your own skills.
There are good reasons for not buying expensive equipment right away. The biggest one is simply that if you don't know if it is the right thing for you, you may spend a lot of money for nothing, that's why some people recommend renting first. The other is that high-end stuff tend to be less forgiving, because they are marketed to experts. It is not that beginners won't enjoy that level of quality, but for the previous reason, there isn't a market for it.