For example, I’m sure the average joe doesn’t know just how expensive calligraphy pens can be, or how deep the rabbit hole goes on video game speedruns.
I’ll do the reverse - I think most people would expect homebrewing beer to be quite hard to get started with, but for $50 you can get everything you need to start making a really quite good beer, and save money at the same time (homebrewed beer is usually much cheaper than store bought)
If you want to get started search for “brew in a bag” and buy a kit beer mix. You’ll need a handful of equipment like a brew bag and fermenter, but that stuff is really cheap.
Then you can indeed go down a massive rabbit hole of refinements, but it just amazed me that the first beer you make will already be a good one.
Skydiver here.
It’s not just money, it’s not just skill that makes you a successful jumper.
It’s a certain type of attitude and the ability to think when you’ve aimed yourself at a planet. Not everyone can do it. To be blunt, there is a large part of the population that shouldn’t do it, because they have terrible decision making ability.
As far as money, I went through the student program in the mid 90’s and it cost me about $1200, if I recall correctly. My first rig, used, was $4000. My second rig, new, was just over $8000. I have 4500 jumps most of which I paid ~ $20 each for. I don’t want to do that math.
I am still amazed about how much money you can spend on making coffee at home. 300€ for a manual grinder - “that’s the cheao chinese stuff” wtf
Maybe not as expensive as the others, but crochet/knitting/sewing all start off fairly cheap, and then the next thing you know you’re offering to service old men behind a Joann’s fabric because you need this particular fabric and you need an entire bolt of it, and it’s the one fabric in the entire fucking store that isn’t on their amazing buy one get 73 free sale for the week.
Rock climbing. To start out you basically just need $150 worth of shoes and some $5 chalk. Trad climbing or big wall climbing can be 5 figures and a dozen years worth of experience. And the skill ceiling is probably obvious, but it’s become an Olympic sport for a reason.
Bouldering here in the Netherlands can start pretty easily:
- € 10-15 entry
- € 5 to rent shoes, although you can bring any clean sport shoes yourself
And that’s it!
You can look into buying shoes and memberships if you’re really into it, but even then € 150 for shoes and € 40-60 a month for a membership is cheaper than my idea of an expensive hobby, like Magic the Gathering or PC building and gaming.