Totally agree, if someone have other intentions for the request, it will make the other person feel like it's dishonest so the conversation usually doesn't go far.
Yes, I've had similar experiences. My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great. No more 2AM calls (at least not because of infra incidents), no more cost concerns from my boss.
I'm tinkering with some electronic gadgets like esp32 to build my own things, such as auto feeder for my aquarium or an auto wattering system for my balcony garden. It's kinda hard and takes time because I'm not an electrican, but I'm really enjoy it and taking it slowly.
I tried it after watching the video demo from the repo creator, and it looked quite impressive at first. And I decided to rebuild my side project with this, but after a few days I realized that it was not for me. It's way too much of a black box for me as an engineer, not a prompter.