The same can be said about basically any workflow investment.
Of course "tons of productive developers manage without." Most productivity changes aren't make or break. That does not mean with hindsight it would be a bad investment.
Of course "tons of productive developers manage without." Most productivity changes aren't make or break. That does not mean with hindsight it would be a bad investment.
But a homelab that's cost 10-100s of hours to setup and maintain to "sparing me the headache of dependency conflicts and TCP port collisions"...
I'm not saying I've proved it has poor payoff. I'm saying I don't believe it has good payoff, similar to all the other alleged "helps me work better" usecases for homelabs.
Homelabs are fun, and a place to learn/experiment.