The only problems I've had with AliExpress is the anxiety of choosing a seller where a cheaper one exists. All the hardware I've ever bought has been exactly what I ordered.
I've had good luck buying from the Wemos and Lilygo official stores on AX. Have had no problems in many years and dozens of orders. Other sellers are a gamble.
Mitchell feels like the exception that proves the rule, the rule being that there are very few engineers turned entrepreneurs that are successful & balanced.
As someone who uses their computers every day, for 7 years... Then I hand them down to my kids.... Then I turn them into servers.
I find the cost of computing extremely affordable, even for high end stuff. Whats the amortization on a 2-3k computer over 7 years? How about if I use it 4 hours a day actively and 24 hours passively?
I have considered spending 10-30k on a computer given the recent AI craze, but the thing stopping me is that by 2025, a 10-30k computer in the AI space is going to be 2-4x better. Only in the last 1 year are we finding out the importance of absurd amounts of VRAM. I feel like the 4090's 24gb VRAM is going to age alright at best, but most likely poorly. (Not that 4090 buyers are going to have qualms upgrading to the 6090)
Oh yeah, I have a computer for a minecraft server. A computer hosting my kiddo's website(just for fun, its silly, but randomly he will want me to pull it up from outside of the house). That same computer hosts some listeners/watchdogs for a media computer, but I havent actually used much of that information or features in a year (WFH kind of removed the need for me to use my remote tools).
I suppose that's it for now.
Oh, I thought of another use, I run a small business on the side and my interns occasionally don't have a laptop, I give them a crappy laptop. (they are basically just using excel/google sheets)
