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Comment by brulard | Hacker News Reader

I can not think of many hobbies which are less expensive if you are serious about them. Some hobbies around me, where $3000 wouldn't get you far: Motorcycles, cars, cycling, collecting anything, woodworking, machining, music making, traveling, horses,...

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The cycling industry does a hard work making sure people think they need expensive bicycles but you can perfectly enjoycycling as a hobby without spending a fortune on it.

And in contradiction to computers, a bicycle from 40 years ago still does the same job as it did at the time, there is no software making it incompatible and it doesn't feel slower than the more modern stuff. All you need is a set of brake pads, cables, tires, chain and cassette every once in a while. All these consumables are fairly cheap if you aren't chasing the newest/highest end tech and stick to 2x9 / 2x10 speed transmissions.

Some of those, like horses, are 1% hobbies. But many of the others can be done very affordably. Buying used equipment, learning from YouTube and online resources, starting small and scaling gradually make most of those hobbies accessible at a fraction of the cost.

You could say the same about computing as a hobby. Maybe that’s your point, hard for me to tell. I always compare it as a hobby to golf or hockey- both of which are common where I come from and pretty pricey hobbies.

I can think of dozens. Running, dance, knitting, painting, woodworking (you can go very far for much less than $3k), archery, chess, board games, drawing, painting, brewing, darts, cycling, etc. etc.

Obviously you can spend pretty much any amount of money on those if you want (if you are "serious" about it) but you don't have to and most people don't. Also he said this $3k expenditure wasn't for serious work.

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