Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie • Hacker News Board

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#101

Post by mbesto » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #77

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 disagree with your take on the "makers" market. The maker world is far more interesting today than in 1985. Yes, there are no "brick and mortar" stores because in 1985, brick and mortar was the only type of store that existed. Nowadays, Internet shopping is so developed that Adafruit, Sparkfun, Digi-Key, etc. don't need brick and mortar stores. The experience of shopping for parts online is much better than at a Ra…

> The maker world is far more interesting today than in 1985.

I think you missed the meaning of the word "market". The parent was commenting on the economics of the maker's market and you were talking simply about the proliferation and innovation of today vs history.

> which maybe sucks for the industry but is fantastic for the hobbyists of limited means.

Agreed. Which is what makes you both probably right.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#102

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:11 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #77

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 disagree with your take on the "makers" market. The maker world is far more interesting today than in 1985. Yes, there are no "brick and mortar" stores because in 1985, brick and mortar was the only type of store that existed. Nowadays, Internet shopping is so developed that Adafruit, Sparkfun, Digi-Key, etc. don't need brick and mortar stores. The experience of shopping for parts online is much better than at a Ra…

I think you have a valid point but did you experience the "friction free" experience of walking into an electronics store idly and then walking out with all of the parts to build a project that afternoon? Most mixed HW/SW hackers accumulate a "stash" of components, and from that stash one can sometimes build new projects, but for me, there is a huge impediment when I have 90% of the parts and then have to wait for the last part for a week (well I can get it in a couple of days if I pay $30 in shipping).

And the difference, for me, between user hosted content (Github and Youtube), and a magazine is that the magazine also has an editor who both made sure the article was clear and for the better magazines perhaps built the project themselves to see how it worked. There is a ton of content from people who don't know what they are doing which obscures the content from people who do. It can be frustrating for people starting because there are so many variables. Did I build it wrong? Did they describe it correctly? Did I miss a step that was obvious to the writer but not me? You get a few projects that fail and you get disillusioned.

A good example of this is a high school kid I helped who was convinced they sucked at soldering because it never worked for them like it did on youtube. Except they were using silver solder "because that is what the hardware store had." Hmmm? Obvious to someone who was taught soldering by someone who knew how to solder, but not obvious when the content creator assumes everyone knows how to solder and what solders are used, so leaves that out of their presentations.

Don't get me started on Kickstarter :-) It has put more people into bankruptcy than MLM in my opinion. When you don't know what you don't know, how can you possibly predict how much money you need to deliver a random number of units of your idea?

Solid, curated, material for new people and advanced people. The stuff magazines used to provide, has made things more difficult rather than less difficult. And it is my opinion that this is at least part of the problem with declining STEM capabilities of students these days.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#103

Post by dilllop » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #15

sabjut wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are your reasons to assume that Siemens would mismanage these sites?

It's one of these typical German conglomerates that absolutely doesn't understand consumer and consumer products. I don't know if it will mismanage Hackaday. They literally only have to keep it as is. But if they don't(mismanage) I'll be positively surprised.

"typical German conglomerates"? Funny expression. You mean, like the three or four there are in total? Why does it matter that it's german? And how does this differ from a typical "us conglomerate", or "chinese conglomerate" or "tajikistani conglomerate"? I am smelling some resentments and stereotypes right over there ...

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#104

Post by mywittyname » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

ldite wrote: post #49

tpmx wrote: post #36

Wow. This is so doomed to fail. German bigcorp with a faked startup culture unit ingesting Hackaday/Tindie. Congrats to the sellers.

Yeah. I worked for a tech company that was acquired by Siemens. It didn't go well.

I worked for another company acquired by Siemens and it went quite well. Profitable, full of world class people, chill atmosphere, and you get to work on some pretty amazing challenges.

It was a bureaucratic beast, for sure, but definitely the best place I've ever worked. That being said, this was a business unit that was very complimentary to a lot of their other BUs. So the acquisition was for growth, not to destroy competition.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#105

Post by rm445 » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

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?…

Just to shout out that Raspberry Pi Press produce some excellent print magazines, albeit very beginner-focused.

Whether they'd be a profitable standalone business I don't know, but as a whole the Raspberry Pi operation seems to be very successful.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#106

Post by peterburkimsher » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

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?…

"There are NO brick and mortar retail components stores" - unless you live in Shenzhen (Huaqiangbei), Tokyo (Akihabara), Taipei (Guanghua), or Kaohsiung (Changmingjie).

Electronics is one of the things I miss most about living there. The air pollution was terrible though. New Zealand has great air, a good second-hand market (2014 Retina MacBook Pro for 300 USD), but 1-2 months shipping does slow down my hobby electronics. Jaycar, PBTech, JB HiFi have a few common items, but nothing like I could get in China, Japan, or Taiwan. It makes me think twice before buying gadgets though, which might be a good thing!

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#107

Post by brysonreece » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

ptorrone wrote: post #63

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)

Hey Phil!

I'd be interested to know if Hackaday has any plans for branded events when deemed safe? With Hackaday.io it also seems like the potential is there to help organize community events or maker-faires on a larger scale as we reenter a post-pandemic world — a gap not really filled since the fall of Make.

(A "Hackaweek" hackercamp sounds like it would be a blast)

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#108

Post by grammarprofess » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:24 PM UTC

jsilence wrote: post #23

grammarprofess wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually makes alot of sense, Siemens and supplyframe will tremendously benefit from this!

Care to detail why and how? Genuinly interested.

Siemens gets to cater to makers and homebrew electronics diyers. Supplyframe gets all the talent, tech, capital and parts Siemens has!

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#109

Post by neolog » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:26 PM UTC

somethingwitty1 wrote: post #98

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, no need to be that narrow: What fraction of all acquisitions end well for the acquired company? I'm sure it must happen, but (at the risk of availability bias) I can't actually think of any.

Depends on what you mean by "well for the acquired company". But if you just mean where the product (or possibly even the brand) went on to be successful, a bunch jump to mind: Pixar, Marvel, Google Maps, Ring, Zappos, Android, Woot!, Gatorade.

I'm impressed by this comment, and curious about what background allowed you to whip up that list.

Re: Siemens acquires Supplyframe, owners of Hackaday and Tindie

#110

Post by tomcooks » Tue, May 25, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

Am I the only one being surprised that what I perceived where the last bastions of pop DIY culture were in fact just farming for corporate acquisition?

This is a bummer, time to forego http and switch to nicer realms.

> This will help customers to reduce costs, increase agility and make highly informed decisions.

Thanks for informing me about how to make decisions and somehow "increase agility" whatever the f that is supposed to mean. Piggusting corpowhorespeak.