I feel the opposite. Cheap tools often are missing many of the QOL features that make learning a new tool enjoyable. Pick up an old 80s style hollow tip soldering iron to learn and you’re just going to think soldering is difficult. Pick up a modern self contained heating element iron, and you’ll spend a lot less time wondering, “am I doing this wrong, why isn’t it melting?”

Similarly, if you intend to use a 3d printer as a tool, you’re not going to want to spend the requisite dozens of hours of tuning and part swapping to get a solid running Ender 3. Buy a decent tool and spend your time learning how to use it, buy a cheap tool and spend your time learning to work around it.

Could not have said it better myself.

I learned so much with my first printer (CR-10). It was fiddly though and took a bit of tweaking each time to get a good first layer. Now I have a Prusa and it is so reliable that I almost miss the tinkering sometimes. I'll regularly start prints while I'm out of the house and can come home to perfect prints with no hassle. They are an expensive way to enter the hobby if you aren't sure what you want or how much you'll use it.

One of these days I'll splurge on a Prusa XL. That thing is cool as hell.