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Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

blog.adafruit.com

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Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#61

Post by ahmedalsudani »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

It’s a different world of smartphones and apps.

Not to say that your lamentation for what’s lost is invalid, but you’ll find some incredible people on those new platforms. Check out Jeremy Fielding, Machine Thinking, AvE, and many others on YouTube.

We have lost, and we have gained.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#62

Post by causality0 »

moolcool wrote: post #3

I hope hackaday manages to stay around. They're the only blog I know which has maintained a high quality though all of these years and through many different owners.

Hackaday definitely earned its spot on my daily reader list. It's especially good lately since they seem to have stopped running clickbait and "trendy" articles. The word "technoshamanism" still makes me gag.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#63

Post by ptorrone »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

i will be interviewing them, so if there are any questions you want me to ask, feel free to post them here.

(i work at adafruit, founded hackaday)

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#64

Post by atatatat »

ornornor wrote: post #54
ptorrone wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'll be interviewing them, so please let me know if there are any specific questions you want asked.

I’d be curious to know what Siemens’ plans are for HaD, if they’re looking to monetize it or just keep it as is. Basically I want to know how long it’ll be before HaD is ruined. I still hope it won’t be because I love HaD but it really doesn’t look good. When has such a corporate takeover ever gone well for the product?

This seems like a good place to ask: who's interested in building a competitor?

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#65

Post by michaelt »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

I suspect hobby electronics has faced stiff competition from hobby computing, among people inclined towards tinkering.

The people who, in the 1980s might have been using a 555 timer to blink an LED? These days they've got a computer, and they're making a web page or writing 'hello world' in javascript.

Oh sure, a few of them might get an Arduino and blink an LED from time to time - but nowhere near enough to support high street component stores.

Of course, from a certain perspective hobby electronics has never been better. Component stockists with huge ranges and fast, cheap shipping? Professionally produced PCBs for $5 including shipping? Microcontrollers with built-in wifi for $1? And the compilers and dev tools are all free? Some of these things have never been better :)

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#66

Post by lotsofpulp »

worldmerge wrote: post #59
ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

I miss going to my local Radio Shack and getting components. When they went under I could really only get components online. Sure, there is a commercial supplier near me but they are only open 9-5ish M-F and don't have a website. It would be great if they were able to digitize their inventory and ship orders. I wonder why some commercial focused companies make it so hard for non-commercial customers to access their b…

> I wonder why some commercial focused companies make it so hard for non-commercial customers to access their business (I'm including companies that have websites but make it clear they only sell to contractors)?

Too much effort for too little revenue. The probability of a customer spending only $50, but also needing 2 hours of customer service might be too high. Once you engage in a transaction with someone, there’s a lot of possible future liability that comes with it.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#67

Post by gertlex »

ddingus wrote: post #9
WanderPanda wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which can be claimed for their content but not for their UI

What do you mean? The UI is fine. The better part of it happens to be the fact that they haven't messed with it.

Maybe parent is still salty about the UI change... several years ago.

I remember not being happy but that's no longer the case for me... but I also don't read it regularly.

What I'd miss most is if the hackaday.io project site were to go away. Makes documenting my projects very easy.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#68

Post by ashtonkem »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

> I suspect that a large chunk of that is money. In particular, the "cost" of things has gone so far down that the money selling those things is a mere pittance of what it was before. But salaries of people to run these businesses, offices, etc hasn't changed.

I believe this is a case of "cost disease", when the labor in one sector continues to get more expensive without matching productivity gains.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#69

Post by genmud »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is great news for Supplyframe. But there is a darker undercurrent here that really needs some introspection. The "makers market" of today doesn't work. Let's compare the market between say 1975 and 1985 with the market between 2010 and 2020. Money spent on the early market supported no less than 6 monthly printed magazines, several chains of electronics component stores (Radio Shack/Tandy/Dick Smiths/Marples(sp?…

I am actually not sure I 100% agree with that take on it.

I would argue that much of the sales of 1975-1985 places like Radio Shack/Tandy/etc. were around early adopters of home computing. And I would also assume that the vast majority of the sales/items they had were finished projects, not "maker market" type of stuff. Many of the magazines of that era are "how to build $x for your home" or "program $y".

I would say that what we are seeing is the market getting much more mature and specialized rather than the makers market going away. I don't think it was ever big enough to be sustainable to begin with, it just so happened that products required bits here and there that those companies had any volume from the general public on maker type of stuff.

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