inb4 'cast iron skillet'
I've always had bad luck with fresh cast iron, so I'm not interested in that. Just looking for a good nonstick pan. I was thinking about the ones with the hexagon stuff on it, but I just looked it up and its $180, so thats gonna have to wait.
Who got the recs?
Cast iron will obviously give you the best longevity when cared for appropriately, but a good middle ground between generic non-stick pans that quickly wear out and cast iron is ceramic coated pans. They are fairly low maintenance and last quite a bit longer than generic non-stick pans as long as you don't royally fuck up some food on them.
I don't have any specific brands to recommend, but they are fairly easy to find and generally about 50-100 USD
Careful with the "ceramic" nonstick, there's a lot of BS in that market segment. There are ones that are not PFAS-ridden (or whichever chemical of the year let's them legally print "PFAS free").
You run this risk with any kind of coated pans unfortunately. Always good to do your due diligence online, but restaurant supply stores will give a pretty good selections of quality equipment if you have the access to one. You'll probably pay a bit more there though.