The $25k car is going extinct?

I work on my own cars now (as a hobby really) and one of the reasons the new cars are so expensive is they are much more complicated. A lot of this seems to be over-engineering IMO. This is alluded to in the article, but not explicitly stated.

The cars I work on are from the early 90s and everything is very simple to understand.

e.g. Electronics are normally simple circuits that aren't much more complicated than what you would find in a door bell and finding faults is normally just tracing wires and using a multi-meter. I had issues with the brake lights / reverse lights not working, the issue turned out that the spade like connector in the fuse box was pushed through and was making partial contact. Price to fix this was £0.

EDIT: Just remembered this isn't accurate. I had to buy a new reverse light. The entire reverse light assembly was ~£20. So the price to fix was about £20. The light assembly itself was like a big bicycle light.

My newer car needs a OB-II scanner to diagnose anything with a phone app. While this is arguably quicker it can be misleading. Sometimes it will be telling you that something is malfunctioning but it is really the sensor itself. These sensors are £200-£300 a piece. Replacing 4 glow plug sensors cost me £800. I was paying essentially to make the "you must service your engine" light to go away. There was nothing wrong with engine itself.

Any recommendation how to start learning repairing a car? I have absolutely zero experience. A friend of mine said just learn to change a tyre first and I have been procrastinating since.

I am still a somewhat of a novice.

Your friend is right IMO. Do something simple first. Like a broken piece of trim, replace a light bulb, change the wiper blades yourself and build yourself up. I had repaired bicycles/motorcycles before hand.

Past that. I literally go on YouTube and watch someone do the task I intend on doing. I have the service manual downloaded for the car (people dump scans of the manuals online as PDFs) and a Haynes Manual (about £20).

Over the last 6 months. I've gone from barely being able to change the wiper blades to replacing a turbo.

I bought an older vehicle(s) that have a good aftermarket parts market and are known to be easy to work on. The simpler / less refined the car is the easier it is to work on.

A word of warning. Usually these things are simple, but not always. Either way, you'll get your hands dirty, and mind off other things.

The YT video for changing my cars' front light bulbs was less than two minutes. After half an hour and a lot of scratches / bruises, I thought I got it done. Started the car, checked the light goes on and off. Scrub hands from dust and dirt, be happy.

Mandatory inspection two months later found out that it was pointing so badly off that their targeting device could not even get a reading. In other words, I had been blinding oncoming traffic. Car didn't pass inspection, I was defeated, and took it to the mechanic.

He also spent twenty to thirty minutes on readjusting the bulb, before it was done and up to spec. It costed only 15 euro, though, as they also expected it to be a 30 second operation.

I guess my point is, don't get discouraged when things don't work immediately, or don't work exactly like a manual / video makes you think. Often it's a learning experience, and while those can be fun, they also sometimes are very much not.

(I'm also a complete novice, and not particularly enjoying the experience, just not affluent enough to pay for all of the maintenance work.)