Been in the hobby for about a decade... until this fall. I've had most consumer, prosumer models - with the MK4 and X1C w/ AMS as my most recent machines. The multicolor of the AMS is beautiful and the MK4 is a good workhorse. If you're just starting out, those would probably be more future looking machines after you know you're really into it.
It does take a lot of tweaking and learning. The slicers (Prusa, Cura, etc) can get very overwhelming for newbies and something as small as a single degree ambient air temp change can impact your results, even catastrophically. A fingerprint on your print surface can lead to adhesion problems 20 hours into a print.
Unfortunately, as my health took a 180 degree for the worse this year and my hands started shaking really bad from Parkinson's, the disease's exhaustion kicked in, etc I decided it wasn't safe any longer. I just sold my entire workshop at a huge loss (both machines mentioned above, 225 rolls of premium filament, individual desiccant containers for each, enclosures, filtration systems, tools, etc.)
My recommendation would be don't get discouraged. Also, don't be afraid to try new things. Dialing in the calibration, bed surface, flow rates, pressure advance, gcode settings, etc are tricky and frustrating at first, but make sense once you figure them out. There are great Reddit subs and Discord channels - both for specific machines and for the general hobby.
