Tinkering with hardware at home arguably used to be more accessible to the home tinkerer starting with building Heathkits. But hardware got more complex and faster and the necessary gear etc. sort of got out of reach. Arguably things like Raspberry Pis and Arduinos have made it more accessible again at a different level of abstraction. But I don't think there's much debate that software is easier for someone without the resources of a university or company to work on in general.

This is my big takeaway. I didn’t really learn programming in my SE courses anyway, so I might as well have done something more useful.