This is pretty universal advice, yes, in most (all?) skywatching tutorials. The astrophotography rabbit hole is deep, infinitely expensive and the learning curve is steep. It's a lot more sensible to start with visual observation.

(That said, I ignored the advice because really wanted to do photography more than anything else.)

That might be true in general, but this is a forum full of highly technical people. At the end of the day, doing basic Astro is not rocket science, and if OP is into photography they might be more interested in buying a small tracking mount for their DSLR than a telescope.

The hobbies are more parallel than sequential.