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An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

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Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#31

Post by Animats »

Remember the "maker movement"? "Maker Spaces?" That was supposed to help restart hardware prototyping in the US. It didn't.

The original TechShop in Silicon Valley was kind of like that. People were making rocket components for the X-Prize. But over time, it turned into a factory for Etsy junk. The concept of "hand made" items made on a CNC laser cutter was a bit much, but it kept about eight laser cutters busy at the San Francisco TechShop. Then Etsy dropped the requirement that you had to make it yourself, and allowed outsourcing. The successor to the bankrupt TechShop has most of the same laser cutters, but they're mostly idle or broken.

People made Burning Man stuff, repaired bicycles, and made furniture. OK hobbies, but not going to change the world or even create a manufacturable product.

I don't know of a single maker space in Silicon Valley with decent electronics prototyping tools. Ardunio hacking, yes. Surface mount soldering and pick and place, no. The commercial maker space in San Jose and San Franciso has cast-off CRT oscilloscopes. About half the right stuff is there, half-broken and gathering dust. I'm waiting to see if the new nonprofits starting up can get their act together and actually open.

What's left of "maker spaces" has turned into "STEM" programs that parents push their kids through so they can improve their resume for college.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#32

Post by Haga »

repsilat wrote: post #20
johnmarcus wrote: post #14

this only works in an ecosystem where the 'race to the bottom' is futile, because you are already at the bottom. Hence why it works in China, no one is going to take your idea and produce it cheaper because everyone is already functioning in the most efficient manufacturing space possible. In the western world, this is unfortunately not the case. Getting something produced is very expensive because our labor, machine…

Software works like this. Language package management and open-source libs are a really close analogue to these little factories and markets full of parts. (I also think we do it with practical knowledge when people change jobs, and I think the short tenures in SV are an undersold competitive advantage.) For things like UI patterns and non-trademarkable design decisions, I think letting good ideas spread quickly is g…

Maybe a western maker space should have a co-maker space in the east, constantly connected by a always on vidchat wall. Stop stalking the past.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#33

Post by speedplane »

Animats wrote: post #31

Remember the "maker movement"? "Maker Spaces?" That was supposed to help restart hardware prototyping in the US. It didn't. The original TechShop in Silicon Valley was kind of like that. People were making rocket components for the X-Prize. But over time, it turned into a factory for Etsy junk. The concept of "hand made" items made on a CNC laser cutter was a bit much, but it kept about eight laser cutters busy at th…

I generally agree with your sentiment, but I can think of at least one counter-example: Tile, which is definitely a new, U.S. based hardware company. I know the founders and used to work with them at a previous company. We had access to tons of embedded equipment and everyone who worked there had a little maker studio at home (one made robotic espresso machines, another did something similar to Google earth but with hourly weather government imagery, another made specialized text-to-speech software for playwrights).

Maker spaces may not have become a thing, but that's okay as long as the makers are still out there. In the U.S. at least, the true maker space is still in your basement or garage.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#34

Post by speedplane »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #2

It's great to see someone advocating for alternative points of view with respect to IP. It's a moot point though. Artisanal hardware is an intellectual dead end. Cost and IP and economics and whatever are a bunch of red herrings. Hardware standardization is pretty much always superior to fragmentation. I've never heard a hardware engineer advocate for fragmentation! Bunnie Huang should be advocating for the artisanal…

> Hardware standardization is pretty much always superior to fragmentation.

I think this is changing with the death of Moore's law. In the past, it was almost always better to follow conventional hardware standards because chips kept on getting better extremely quickly. In the 18 months or so it would take an engineering team to come up with some custom hardware, the general purpose Intel hardware would improve so much that it made more sense to wait than to make something custom.

However now, Moore's law is pretty much dead. Processor performance is improving, but it's no longer on an exponential. Today, to gain an extra X% of performance, your best bet is often build your own hardware or ASIC customized to your particular use case. We see this everywhere now, with Apple building their own chips, folks making custom chips for AI and blockchain, and ARM's comparatively customizable architecture beating out Intel's relatively closed one.

With the death of Moore's law, coupled with the unceasing desire to suck out more performance from similar hardware, we're now seeing far more fragmentation than we did in the 90s, 00s, or early 10s.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#35

Post by jl2718 »

Pretty sure that’s the guy that scaled a small building to show me the MIT apartment he wanted me to rent with him about 15 years ago. Deja-vu moment. Cool guy; couldn’t find a third.

Do most of these ‘factory’ startups make a profit? How do they get investment? It seems like this is only possible in an export-driven economy.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#38

Post by 1ta »

Patents punishes everyone who is not first. Why would anyone innovate when the rewards are 2 lotto away: 1. innovation itself, 2. be 1st among 7B ?

Patents might have been fine in local economy of 25M 100 years ago but they are definitely are not in global economy of 7B today.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#39

Post by Animats »

speedplane wrote: post #33
Animats wrote: post #31

Remember the "maker movement"? "Maker Spaces?" That was supposed to help restart hardware prototyping in the US. It didn't. The original TechShop in Silicon Valley was kind of like that. People were making rocket components for the X-Prize. But over time, it turned into a factory for Etsy junk. The concept of "hand made" items made on a CNC laser cutter was a bit much, but it kept about eight laser cutters busy at th…

I generally agree with your sentiment, but I can think of at least one counter-example: Tile, which is definitely a new, U.S. based hardware company. I know the founders and used to work with them at a previous company. We had access to tons of embedded equipment and everyone who worked there had a little maker studio at home (one made robotic espresso machines, another did something similar to Google earth but with…

That doesn't scale. Watch some videos of Huaqiangbei.

Re: An Alternative to the American Way of Innovation [video]

#40

Post by speedplane »

Animats wrote: post #39
speedplane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree with your sentiment, but I can think of at least one counter-example: Tile, which is definitely a new, U.S. based hardware company. I know the founders and used to work with them at a previous company. We had access to tons of embedded equipment and everyone who worked there had a little maker studio at home (one made robotic espresso machines, another did something similar to Google earth but with…

That doesn't scale. Watch some videos of Huaqiangbei.

>> In the U.S. at least, the true maker space is still in your basement or garage.

> That doesn't scale.

It most definitely can scale. If there is a strong national or regional social norm that encourages tinkering in your current garage, basement, or dorm room, it can reach a far broader scale than forcing folks to make things in pre-defined maker spaces that require memberships and monthly fees.

Maker spaces have benefits, like increased connectivity and collaboration as well as efficiently dividing the cost of larger pieces of equipment. However, they also introduce costs, like monthly fees, forced social connections, and engendering group-think. It can be far more beneficial for a group of students/colleagues/friends to meet in their parent's basement or garage than to each sign up for a maker space.

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