True, but in a longer term? where the curve filters out the side projects which arent viable and others will make it to a inevitable point of scaling?

Fair point — survivorship bias is real. The ones that make it to scaling problems are exactly the ones that didn't over-engineer early. Maybe the filter itself is the feature, not a bug.

I have a different experience personally quite a few of my side projects end up being put on the back burner after a few days of code when I realize I should’ve over engineered and I’m going to have to spend some time refactoring/reengineering if I want to continue though I also have a lot of scope creep where I’ll start with one idea in mind get there or near there and then want to start adding stuff or changing the end product

That's a really common pattern — the refactor trap. You ship v1, it works, then you see exactly what it should have been from the start.

I've started treating that moment as a feature not a bug. You only know the right architecture after you've built the wrong one. The scope creep part is harder though — that's where I try to keep a separate "ideas" list and not touch it until v1 is stable. Doesn't always work