If you can design a basic schematic, you can design a basic PCB. And if you can open and understand schematics for some development boards, you can design a basic schematic.

That being said - it's still way beyond the skill level of an average guy. Sure, it doesn't actually require a PHD - but most people don't even know how to use an Arduino board.

But for those who want to get into hobby electronics or even embedded proper? There's never been a better time to do so.

Cheap and capable PCB fabs, free open source design and simulation tools, downloadable datasheets, open SDKs, readily available components and hardware tools and plentiful resources on how to use all of that. 20 years ago this just didn't exist. 40 years ago, "hobbyist PCB" involved hand drawing the traces, manually etching copper with corrosive chemicals and drilling all the holes - for projects that today would be considered basic.

It's not that hard to make a board, but what use do 99% of people have for their own pcb? And then the problem comes when you try to sell it actually designing for rf regulations is legit phd level voodoo work.

I used to use Visio (it had circuit design tools) for some stuff.

At school we had custom software to do it, but applying of the transfers and the etching of the boards was done by us with the usual chemicals.

I mean, Reddit does seem to have a hard on for giving borrowed money to institutions that have no intention of helping them or delivering on promises. This fetish seems to present itself most when someone suggests that a task or procedure is actually very cheap and/or simple to perform oneself. Making such a suggestion tends to bring people out of the woodwork, furious that you would be so irresponsible/ignorant that you wouldn’t want to pay a ‘specialist’ exorbitant prices for whatever service.

I mean, don’t you know that without a PHD in electric engineering you’re going to burn down your apartment complex and only violent extremists would want to make their own circuit boards??