[userbinator]

Network switches, even managed ones, are usually "set and forget".

But sure, if you don't want to take control of your home network, then the corporate overlords will be more than happy to control it for you --- possibly against your wishes.

[YZF]

I work on networks in my day job. Just like the parent at home I'm cool with a single L2 network behind a firewall. The box that plugs into the fiber is my NAT/Firewall. The rest is just off the shelf stuff I never have to touch or configure, mostly WiFi. No idea why you need link aggregation or vlans at home for most home use. what's next? VRFs and VXLAN? IPsec? Racks in your home data center with spine/leaf? ECMP?

EDIT: I have kids and never felt the need to isolate their network. I've never had a guest/friend that needed to access my network, everyone is on a network via their phone. But if they did they can jump on my WiFi.

[wpm]

I run IPsec at home, on two HA OPNSense firewalls/routers precisely because I don’t get to do it all day. It’s a learning experience.

[exmadscientist]

Sure, "I wish to learn about this stuff" or "I think playing with this stuff is fun" are both fair reasons.

But apart from those, I just don't understand how adding the complexity makes my life better. People are saying "VLANS!!!" but why would I want to do that? How does my life improve if I do?

[userbinator]

Everyone has already stated what they find VLANs useful for. If you don't think they're useful then I suspect you don't think VMs are useful either.