Sometimes you don't know what the minimum viable is because you are a beginner and don't know yourself well in that field.
For example, I started running with shoes that were somewhat fine for beginners when I would double-check online, but happened to have limitations that affected people who practice a lot, or people who don't practice properly, or in my case undiagnosed issues (hypermobility of the knee). In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running.
Another example I've encountered is with the guitar: the first one I picked up was this entry-entry-level thing that was viable for my budget but hindered my interest in practice because I didn't just encounter the physical pain you encounter when learning the guitar, but also the pain you get from badly adjusted guitars with high action and uneven frets and fairly crappy wood. I gave up on it a few times. But I eventually tried again and made the hypothesis that the hindrance was the guitar, and after testing that hypothesis I committed to buying a better one which enabled me to actually learn things that flat out seemed impossible on a crappy piece of wood. Years later, I'm far away from all my good guitars and I buy this entry-level thing because I miss playing.. and it's been hanging there mostly untouched because of how bad it just feels.
I think it's much smarter to spend some time testing out things with other people's help and to borrow stuff for a while whenever possible, but on average to commit to something above entry-level if you're trying to be serious about anything. You'll save yourself a decent amount of time, you can give yourself a progress curve that looks much smoother, and when comes the time to truly upgrade you'll have something solid to use as a base to look at higher quality tools.
edit: notwithstanding the fact that in many cases you have zero resell-value for physical tools that are entry-level, while something average will at least go for a reasonable percentage of the original price