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I'd add that I reckon the average Joe coffee enthusiast, let's say someone that owns an aeropress and goes to Workshop over Costa, would find it much easier to taste the difference between an average and great filter coffee compared to an average and great espresso. For espresso it's easy to tell the difference between bad and ok but going from ok to great, I reckon not many home baristas can do that. Whereas with filter there's much more room for getting different flavours. Knock out something passable in a hurry or spend a little more time refining it to something niceably better. And the kit to do that costs like £20 including the beans while an espresso machine to make really great, consistent espresso is like >£700 just for the machine.
Sumo-
Yeah it's a tricky one, I'm fairly sure I'm biased in my opinion in preferring filter, but I agree with you. Also given the fact that I so rarely actually make myself an espresso and my machine for milky drinks for my wife and in-laws, it's very possibly I'm churning out shite espresso and masking it with some decent milk!
Much like cycling I guess, it's easy to fall into the trap of "maybe if I just spend (much) more money, I'll get better"
mmccarthy
This is definitely a pet peeve of mine, the idea that espresso is some sort of gold standard of coffee. Like all sorts of hobby communities (it could be argued of course whether or not it is a hobby or not, but that's an argument I don't care about), there's always going to be an element of gatekeeping and snobbery. And as coffee has become a bigger thing in the past 10 years, there's always going to be an increased amount of this sort of thing. It's definitely not limited to coffee (or even cycling) of course. For me the benefit of these sorts of hobby communities is sharing your enjoyment, and helping/getting help in order to enjoy it further.
Though why anyone would spend £1k or so just to have a small goopy version of a filter coffee at home is beyond me /s