The high barrier of entry is important, but there were people making stuff anyways. You're right that Im way oversimplifying. It feels like the indie scene dried up once meta got involved and this is entirely a vibes based conclusion and excuse to hate meta more.

The VR market looked like it was going to be great until Facebook bought Oculus and made it super lame with their metaverse stuff. I feel like they killed all the momentum behind interesting indie things that people were making.

At the very least you do not need to take the pills everyday, every other day is the same (and might actually be better). Theoretically SlowFE or liquid iron might have less side effects. Iron usually drops pretty slowly once you do get levels up but it depends why it's low.

Have some corny attempts at Rochester tunes made in the 70s.

Or just listen to Joywave who are from Rochester and are how I found out this exists