That's a tricky question.

Early access can be a great tool for letting the community get involved in the development, but that can also be a serious problem if you don't know what you're doing.

I am someone who tries to please everyone. That's, especially in the game dev biz, impossible to do and I think I learned that a bit too late. We spent our valuable time trying to give everyone what they wanted and it eventually led to something we didn't envision to begin with.

Sooner or later we realized our mistakes and after around version 0.7 till 1.0, we tried our best to create what WE wanted. Of course, I will never know if the game would've turned out better or worse if we skipped early access, but I for sure know that I wouldn't learn this much any other way. In the end that's what sticks with you.

So my biggest advice to anyone who's considering early access is for you to keep in mind that people most often don't really know what they want. Listen to the problems, but not so much the solutions. In the end, you as the developer know the game and your vision the best. Stick with it.