The price is a bit steep. I could probably justify it if I saw more project examples with a parts list. I can get an arduino uno knockoff from Amazon for about $5, so I'd want to know what is included to justify the price. Of course a major part of the price is coming up with kit, sourcing all the parts, etc.
Arduino kits have never been a good value proposition from a parts list perspective, you tend to hope it's the ease of access and guided learning that make it worthwhile.
Starter kits with pennies worth of a few passive components and a few "interesting" sensors on breakouts sell for 50$+. Taken at their parts list you could get a thousand assorted pieces of most of the passive components for a few bucks on eBay, and you could get the breakouts on AliExpress for a few bucks too.
But the time it'd take to wait for a packet from China, or even from the US for a small premium, can disrupt someone who's just learning. If you forget a part, that can be a week of waiting. The kit promises everything you'll need.
And the guided nature helps beginners not get caught up in the minutiae of designing things. Google "turn on LED with Arduino" and you'll get answers ranging from "just stick it in series with an IO pin(not a great idea imo)", to "use a NPN transistor (which leads down its own train of learning as to how it works and why it's needed)" and a bunch of stuff in between".
I know some basic electronics (I think), and felt I was better off "splurging" on AliExpress and eBay once and filling a drawer with an assortment of passive components and breakouts to sensors I thought might be interesting and just building stuff as it came to mind.
A handful of ESP8266s and some assorted sensors can make for some pretty interesting projects by themselves
FWIW, Atmel AVR (the Arduino microcontroller) I/Os are typically beefy enough to drive the 20 mA that LEDs usually like to get nice and bright. It was one of their early differentiators.
Depending on the LED, I would have no problem driving it directly with just a current limiting resisitor.
