I definitely think there's a significantly higher quality guarantee with Mouser, Digikey, SparkFun, etc. than there is with Amazon/ AliExpress. But hey, like yo

I definitely think there's a significantly higher quality guarantee with Mouser, Digikey, SparkFun, etc. than there is with Amazon/ AliExpress. But hey, like you said for hobbyist use it might just be good enough and the cost savings can't be beat. As a beginner though, you might bang your head for hours over a non-functional circuit just because a cheapo component isn't doing what it should. Once you gain confidence it can be a bonus challenge to write a driver for some poorly documented knockoff component :p