These days I don't think Arduinos are meaningfully more accessible than, say, an ESP8266 or ESP32. If I was starting a new hobby project today I'd choose the latter.
That's only if you're using the Arduino IDE though, and it's so commonplace that instructions are widespread. Many are using MicroPython/CircuitPython which are independent from Arduino.
The first esp8266 I bought was as a dedicated wifi chip for an arduino (or something) project. I discovered after getting it, that it came with a 'free' MCU (that was default flashed with a UART/AT-command firmware to allow other MCUs to get wifi)
