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Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

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Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#21

Post by cableshaft »

seltzered_ wrote: post #13

Might be worth searching for: - TechShop and it's fall - I remember one person arguing hackerspaces may be better run as a nonprofit model. - The rise of small-scale maker capabilities within public institutions like libraries. I considered signing up for a maker space last year and it made more sense to pay for a second library that happened to have a good maker lab. - The rise of cheaper or more accessible prototyp…

Yeah, my local library has a pretty decent makerspace in its basement, at least if you're making smaller things. These are the machines that are currently there:

* Prusa 3D Printer

* Hic Top CR-10 3D Printer

* Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer

* Brother ScanNCut

* Silhouette CAMEO

* Silhouette Vinyl Cutter

* EverSewn Sparrow X2 Embroidery Machine

* Brother PE900 Embroidery Machine

* Carvey CNC Desktop Fabricator

* Glowforge Laser Cutter

* Sawgrass Sublimation Printer

It also has a lot of audio recording equipment with soundbooths, and a bunch of lighting and photography/video equipment.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#22

Post by astrange »

Like every other issue in American cities, poor land use means you can never afford to have anything except what was already there.

I feel like I read a story about running one in the Bay that was just about having to deal with crustpunks and people having sex in the machine rooms.

Although I think libraries have equipment like 3D printers these days.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#24

Post by mdasen »

Real Estate. So many quirky things are viable when there's cheaper rent, cheap buying opportunities, or underutilized space. If I could buy space for $150/sq ft, I might have some extra cash, like the idea of investing in real estate, and like the idea of having a cool community hackerspace. If it's going to cost me $1,000/sq ft, I'm barely going to be able to afford the space I want to live in. If a group of us can rent at cheap prices we're saving money on our housing and paying for a shared second space doesn't cost that much.

Over the past 15 years or so, property prices have soared in so many cities. It really makes it hard to afford space for quirky things. There are certainly plenty of examples of ones that still exist and enough determination and you can still make things happen, but I think the rising cost of real estate is putting a damper on things like this.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#26

Post by Solvency »

cableshaft wrote: post #21
seltzered_ wrote: post #13

Might be worth searching for: - TechShop and it's fall - I remember one person arguing hackerspaces may be better run as a nonprofit model. - The rise of small-scale maker capabilities within public institutions like libraries. I considered signing up for a maker space last year and it made more sense to pay for a second library that happened to have a good maker lab. - The rise of cheaper or more accessible prototyp…

Yeah, my local library has a pretty decent makerspace in its basement, at least if you're making smaller things. These are the machines that are currently there: * Prusa 3D Printer * Hic Top CR-10 3D Printer * Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer * Brother ScanNCut * Silhouette CAMEO * Silhouette Vinyl Cutter * EverSewn Sparrow X2 Embroidery Machine * Brother PE900 Embroidery Machine * Carvey CNC Desktop Fabricator * Glowforge…

Do you live in the wealthiest city in America? I've been to 11 libraries and absolutely none of them have anything on that list.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#27

Post by sircastor »

Aside from community (which is incredible important), Hackerspaces are a method of tool-sharing. In the last decade, many of the popular tools that used to live exclusively at a Hackerspace can be now be found in schools, libraries, and homes: 3D Printers, lasercutters, electronics toolkits, etc. And 3 years of pandemic isolation meant that people weren't able to show up anyway.

One of my favorite spaces (though distant from where I live) - Metrix Create:Space - shut down down in 2018 in part because people didn't have as much of a reason to show up [1]

[1] https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/08/tech-junkies-and-...

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#29

Post by sircastor »

karmicthreat wrote: post #18

They kind of came to be when the Bush financial meltdown happend. Unemployment was getting high in the late 00's. People were trying to develop new skills or build cottage industries. It feels like there is less of a hustle with all that now. Plus makerspaces were just difficult to make viable and really you are probably better off spending that time on any other endeavor. A group of us out here tried starting one in…

I had a dream of running a Hackerspace, and no matter which way I crunched the numbers it just wasn't financially viable - not as a business.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

#30

Post by juahan »

Solvency wrote: post #26
cableshaft wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my local library has a pretty decent makerspace in its basement, at least if you're making smaller things. These are the machines that are currently there: * Prusa 3D Printer * Hic Top CR-10 3D Printer * Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer * Brother ScanNCut * Silhouette CAMEO * Silhouette Vinyl Cutter * EverSewn Sparrow X2 Embroidery Machine * Brother PE900 Embroidery Machine * Carvey CNC Desktop Fabricator * Glowforge…

Do you live in the wealthiest city in America? I've been to 11 libraries and absolutely none of them have anything on that list.

Here in Finland the libraries often have that kind of stuff, in smaller places maybe a little less, but larger cities have nice amount of stuff to use and/or loan.
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