Anyway, the hard part about this is that you need a space and then the tools and some tools are easier/cheaper to build than buy (e.g. bandsaw, router table) but there comes a point at which you have to stop building the shop and start building furniture. Most of the YouTubers I follow haven't gotten this message yet...

Not really surprising, the majority of the cost is the actual work. Especially in high-wage countries like the US. Buying a computer to build a website is also much cheaper than getting a website made by someone else.

You might like my Youtube channel then (see previous link). I work in my living room, using my couch and my Ikea stool for basically everything. A lot of cheap hand tools, but I can't work without my drill press. I pick up 2x3's at the local home depot, start sawing and drilling, and mostly use bolts and nuts for connections. Along the way I pick up new power tools, like a portable drill, a dremel, and my newest - a trim router. I built a bicycle caravan, a portable stove, among others. One of the things that really surprised me is the amount of jigs that come to life out of nowhere, haha.

By the way, nice bandsaw you made!

The stuff in furniture stores has like 5 different stages of companies each taking a cut, increasing the price at every step.

Our favorite is "Design Stories" (which used to be "Design Talks Plus") that features many such fantastic Japanese crafspeople. Our family hasn't missed an episode in quite a few years.

And, of course, there is the Canadian resident of Japan, David Bull, who does traditional wood-block prints in the style of the magnificent Hokusai. His attention to detail in his work is inspiring to us as well.

"Japanese Joinery" as a search term yields a near bottomless rabbit-hole of amazingness that hits the perfect intersection of craftsmanship, technology and art for this engineer.