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peguin said..
Kite equipment was clear example of this in the early days. I want my skills to develop relatively quickly so best to start with the best equipment. Beginners stuff always sells well if its actually beginners stuff and well designed.
It is not as clear cut with these "new" sports that are foiling and Wingfoiling. They can still get a lot of experience from the decades of advances in foil and kite before them, even if not everything applies. Some - not all, though - very early foils (2016) are still quite good as beginner stuff, and it is even more true for the 2017 and 2018 ones, there have been no real paradigm shift, e.g. we didnt move to canard foils or monofoils.
If you avoid the non-name alibaba foils, it is easy now to get feedback on the actual merits of known brands old models. For instance for the Gong foils, I would discourage you from getting a Hellvator model (too fast, not enough lift), but the Allvators, even the early ones, are still excellent beginner foils, and you can grab them at very interesting prices now that some people have progressed into the "pro" models. And I guess a lot of the "big name" early foils are still quite good for beginners.
This may not be the case in 10 years time, however.