Man this is hilarious! I'm a week-old electronics "hobbyist" with my arduinos and stuff, and even I understand that it is just a toy and a road to the actual real hardware.
"Makers" ahahaha
But seriously, these suckers will be the first I'll be selling hardware toys to. Because it's not fun if it can't finance itself. They seem to be willing to pay many times the price for unassembled kits, too.
BTW, not trying to start a flame war, but a 555 can have uses beyond an LED. Heck, a few threads back I read about someone using it as a fail safe for a sprinkler system. Even Dave used one to create a board to control the Mantis LED lighting. If you understand the internals (watch blog #555), you can do great things with it, and go beyond standard circuits. Back in the Z80 and 6502 days they were used for reset circuits. The 555 didn't change from the '80s, people did, and it has since become a beginner LED project, instead of a serious component with a (yes, very flexible) function. A cheap-ass source of PWM, a single shot pulse, even a crappy triggered timebase. watch the blog, and understand just what the discharge pin does.
I guess we all have our ow views on the subject,which is good I love building everything ,some times I build a circuit from start to finish, sometimes I add a Nano if I think it's easier. The 555, still lots of uses for it I use NE555 & TS555cn,the latter makes a lovely simple square gen with a variable pulse,I also use them for timing a chime, on equipment I don't want to leave on,they also make a nice ramp generator. I personally find lots of uses for them & have a good supply approx 60 ish.
So I say just enjoy the hobby,whether your hobbyists, purists, or someone who walks around with their head up their own arse.
If you wanna design your own stuff or want an employment, then obviously you need to learn basic electronics. I never thought it can be so tricky until I got stuck with building my class AB transistor amplifier.
Digital electronics can be handled quite well with just over a month of hard work but analog electronics is really tough. Even after working with analog electronics for six years, I don't think I have learnt enough. If anyone feels the way I do, here are two playlists that I think should be helpful:
(you might wanna skip the initial 1 min in every video)