If I go through my parts box it's not hard to find Wifi modules that require a substantial amount of config and in some cases a solid understanding of how WiFi

If I go through my parts box it's not hard to find Wifi modules that require a substantial amount of config and in some cases a solid understanding of how WiFi works. And they were 10s of dollars a unit. I'm delighted that modules like the ESP8266 showed up and made it easy and shockingly cheap. There was a real windfall moment when Arduino syntax was ported to the 8266, and Espressif has really taken advantage of it.