They ditched their best selling products. The color computer II, the TRS80, the Armatron.
'
If it wasn't for RadioShack I would not be here on this forum.
'
The engineers note book and other writings from Forest M Mimms III, Sparked my interest.
'
Sad to see it go...
It's a new world guys. Things have changed, Radio Shack didn't. There is no way for them to exist anymore, at least not as they are now. It's already been said, you can't support a fancy mall store selling 555 timers, op amps and resistors. You also can't do it selling cell phones.
I always thought their only hope was the smaller non-corporate stores, operating in smaller cities and towns, but apparently that's not going to save them. It would have been nice if those stores were able to at least keep using the name after the corporation goes under, but I doubt that will happen. My guess is that the name will be sold to some Chinese company and will only continue as some ghost of it's former self - like so many others, just another brand name slapped on the front of cheap LCD TVs.
When I want some odd components to build something I go down to an electronics store, Partco. They have piles of stock from Rs and Cs to TTL to micro-controllers and devkits, http:// http://www.partco.fi/en/
Now, every time I go there I have to stand in line for twenty minutes. The place seems to be busy all the time. They have a staff who know what they are selling. Partco is not in a shopping mall, just out in the suburbs.
This city and surroundings has a population of about 1.3 million. It helps that there is a technical university full of students building stuff, and a maker club and so on. That's enough to support Partco very well. (For the commercial customers we have a "real" electronics distributor, ELFA.)
So my thought was that if Radio Shack stuck to it's original component and hobbyist roots the population of the USA should be able to support about 230 such stores. They need to close about 900 of the existing ones and move the rest out to cheaper locations. And get them stocked up properly. It should not be hard to find few hundred young geeks who would like to work there.
At Radio Shack you didn't get either low prices or knowledgeable staff. Like I said, you might as well be talking to a vending machine.
Internet shopping is for me. The cost of shipping is comparable to the amount of gas/travel I'd spend and use. Can't beat the selection on the internet, nor the readily available data sheets and having friendly discussions with other forum users. I think I'm talking to some German guy living in Taiwan (Loopy), someone I'd never cross paths with IRL.
I don't know what I'd do if I were the CEO of RS.
Thanks for being upfront about it.
Most people shop based on price.
The RS stores I tend to use ARE staffed with knowledgable people...decades of experience..but I suspect that is the exception.
It is well known that B&M stores are losing the battle with sales on the Internet.
Note the Ebay deals that Erco posts...how would a company compete with those loss leaders?
Note the Ebay deals that Erco posts...how would a company compete with those loss leaders?
There's no chance as you suggested - it'd be a bad business model for certain. The future of American companies in this industry must focus on innovation, not commodities which are a already-lost race to the bottom.
When I want some odd components to build something I go down to an electronics store, Partco. They have piles of stock from Rs and Cs to TTL to micro-controllers and devkits, http:// http://www.partco.fi/en/
Now, every time I go there I have to stand in line for twenty minutes. The place seems to be busy all the time. They have a staff who know what they are selling. Partco is not in a shopping mall, just out in the suburbs.
This city and surroundings has a population of about 1.3 million. It helps that there is a technical university full of students building stuff, and a maker club and so on. That's enough to support Partco very well. (For the commercial customers we have a "real" electronics distributor, ELFA.)
So my thought was that if Radio Shack stuck to it's original component and hobbyist roots the population of the USA should be able to support about 230 such stores. They need to close about 900 of the existing ones and move the rest out to cheaper locations. And get them stocked up properly. It should not be hard to find few hundred young geeks who would like to work there.
I think you're exactly right. There's a local business that sounds much like your description of Partco. It stocks primarily components, but also offers tools and kits. The employees aren't exactly electrical engineers, but they are quite savvy. Anyway, the place is *always* busy. More than a few business start-ups can trace their beginnings to conversations between customers while waiting to be served. :-)
Radio Shack was OK for me to start. Small parts, the awful smelling P-box kits as well. Then, once I had more mobility, I discovered a store called Quement Electronics which did well enough for parts up into the Voc School classes. Then I discovered a bunch of the part and chip sellers out at the intel end of the San Thomas Expressway and that spoiled it forever. Radio Shack became a store of last resort or desperation when no one else was open. Of course, if you are ever in Nurnberg , there is always Conrad (sp?). I had pretty good luck with them when I was there for a while. As to Radio Shack, there will be the nostalgia factor when they are gone, but like someone already said they will probably live on in the company of such brands as RCA, Memorex etc.........
Note: We also had a shop called Capital Electronics which about a year or two ago went on-line only, Saved many thousands of dollars because I could get the part from pennies to a few dollars and not have to buy a OEM or third party spare board or assembly for a medical imaging device. Only thing I have close to that is first overnight on parts from digikey, mouser, allied and sometimes, Avnet.
When I want some odd components to build something I go down to an electronics store, Partco. They have piles of stock from Rs and Cs to TTL to micro-controllers and devkits, http:// http://www.partco.fi/en/
Now, every time I go there I have to stand in line for twenty minutes. The place seems to be busy all the time. They have a staff who know what they are selling. Partco is not in a shopping mall, just out in the suburbs.
This city and surroundings has a population of about 1.3 million. It helps that there is a technical university full of students building stuff, and a maker club and so on. That's enough to support Partco very well. (For the commercial customers we have a "real" electronics distributor, ELFA.)
So my thought was that if Radio Shack stuck to it's original component and hobbyist roots the population of the USA should be able to support about 230 such stores. They need to close about 900 of the existing ones and move the rest out to cheaper locations. And get them stocked up properly. It should not be hard to find few hundred young geeks who would like to work there.
There's no chance as you suggested - it'd be a bad business model for certain. The future of American companies in this industry must focus on innovation, not commodities which are a already-lost race to the bottom.
Ken Gracey
Excellent service and support, kits and projects of vetted parts, value adds like "Learn" curriculum, educational services, excellent forum communities PLUS innovation.......remind anyone of any companies they know???
There's no chance as you suggested - it'd be a bad business model for certain. The future of American companies in this industry must focus on innovation, not commodities which are a already-lost race to the bottom.
I'd love to start a little electronics shop, put all kinds of cool specialty items out for sale, but then what? Lose money because not enough people buy that stuff, look at the demographics. It's really not that complicated.
Yep. Being that you're in San Diego, you probably know of the closures over the years of all sorts of boutique electronics outlets. We still have Fry's, but we've lost Gateway and others over the years. Not enough business to keep them in business. I'm still lamenting the loss of the Lafayette in Pacific Beach. We're talking 40 years ago...
Yep. Being that you're in San Diego, you probably know of the closures over the years of all sorts of boutique electronics outlets. We still have Fry's, but we've lost Gateway and others over the years. Not enough business to keep them in business. I'm still lamenting the loss of the Lafayette in Pacific Beach. We're talking 40 years ago...
I too.
Over the last 20 some years we have lost dozens of local electronic outlets, surplus houses and supply sources that hobbyists depended on.
I still lamenting the loss of the Great and Wonderful Boeing surplus store...end of an era where America built stuff.
There's no chance as you suggested - it'd be a bad business model for certain. The future of American companies in this industry must focus on innovation, not commodities which are a already-lost race to the bottom.
OK this morning I dropped by the Radio Shack in the very affluent New Orleans suburb of Mandeville, near where I live.
Maker stuff FULLY STOCKED. NOTHING on sale in makerville. Quickstarts in stock priced USD$43. They did have a markdown table but it was mostly old toys and bluetooth stuff. They did have the old part number LED strips for $6.95 so I snagged one, and Gigaware webcams half off at $10 which is competitive with other sources so I got one. I think it's clear this is one of the branches that will be staying in business -- they are selling the truly old and excess stuff, but not having a fire sale.
Localroger, QuickStarts should be $14.97 so the next time you go there ask for a price check at the register. RSJim said they just lowered it but RS only has Revision A.
Localroger, QuickStarts should be $14.97 so the next time you go there ask for a price check at the register. RSJim said they just lowered it but RS only has Revision A.
And now it doesn;t show up in a search of Radio Shack's inventory.
Adam Levine-Weinberg (I guess he's attached to his maiden name) wrote,
"Others pointed out that some RadioShack stores were competing with each other because they are so ubiquitous in certain areas."
Well, that's what passes for writing anymore - Garbage. ubiquitous - seeming to be found everywhere
"so ubiquitous" - seeming to be found more than everywhere
retention payment. wow. that one is new to me. A bonus because you do what you are paid for anyways but not run away?
interesting that they do not mention the 'base salary' of Joe the CEO.
'base salary' itself is a nice one too.
As for the high-school dropout. Worse? Depends on the point of view. Worse for Radio Shack or worse for the Managers and the Stock Market?
I am quite sad about things like this.
Maybe it is part of getting old. Like most of us (I guess) I had to work hard to make a decent living. Still do. OK. Being married and divorced a couple of times in my live I lost most of my hard earned income once in a while.
Being a programmer for the a major part of my live I took out a lot of jobs too. Its part of that optimizing. When I in 1992 sold my PC based Cash Register Systems to supermarkets in Germany I could see it clearly when installing the new systems. Those gray schemes of 6 'normal' Cash register lines replaced by 4 'optimized' ones. A lot of sad Cashiers, not really happy to see me and explain the new system.
Sure. Management decided to just replace 4 of 6 register lines and kick out 1/3 of their Cashiers. It paid for the new Systems in one year! That's how it basically got sold by the sales team in the first place.
Over the next 20 years I worked for small and big companies, but overall it is the same. I am a Job killer. Wherever I go. Whatever I program. It's part of the Job.
All of us programmers do that. We kill Jobs. All of us. Optimizing and streamlining stuff. Either we kill existing jobs or we lower the need to hire new people.
Isn't it the same with those CEOs and MBAs? They streamline and optimize and - well - as byproduct kill a lot of Jobs. Like us programmers do for a living.
As I said, I am quite sad about this.
But as a Job Killer by my own profession, I do not really feel to be in the position to point my finger at those 'bad, bad CEOs' and 'Vultures' who run big companies.
When sitting in a Glass House do not throw stones...
Here where I live now, in some far out part of California we have a Radio Shack Franchiser. About the size of living room. Family owned since who knows. Them sell cell phones too, but are eager (and able) to help in any way if you have any electrical problem. (those things you can not fix with WD40 or Duct-Tape).
Without this 'Shack' there is nothing around within 1 1/2 hour drive. In rural Areas like where I live RS is really needed.
All of us programmers do that. We kill Jobs. All of us. Optimizing and streamlining stuff.
Don't really agree with this. The march of technology simply shifts the jobs, and in many cases to better paying ones. That security job robot might replace some minimum wage guards, but it creates a demand for skilled programmers and field technicians.
The lesson in all this is a hard one for some: you don't want to be in the job market and lack skills.
Don't really agree with this. The march of technology simply shifts the jobs, and in many cases to better paying ones. That security job robot might replace some minimum wage guards, but it creates a demand for skilled programmers and field technicians.
The lesson in all this is a hard one for some: you don't want to be in the job market and lack skills.
You might not agree with me, but I do agree with you, since you proved my point.
That security robot provides a couple of better paid jobs for some educated people while killing off a lot of jobs for lower educated people. If not the project would fail, not making profit.
Same with Radio Shack. Closing the stores will make profit and swarming the job market with people who learned to sell cell phones. Not really a useful skill, I know.
But what to do with them? This whole process is going on and more and more skillful jobs get replaced. I remember a time where I felt envy for those guys who got a job as Bank Teller after School, since I was driving trucks now. Poor Guys. Most of them replaced by machines shortly after...
I did work my way up the food-chain by getting (and paying for) more education. Thankfully I had the smarts to do that. But not everybody has. Especial here in the US of A where education is way more expensive then in Europe or Asia. Luck for me that I grew up in Germany. So education was a lot cheaper then here in my beloved States.
So what to do with them people not getting work, because them lack those skills needed? Workers are not needed anymore. What to do?
Like you I am on the lucky side of this equation. Still. I hope I stay ahead of it for the next 15-20 years I need to work. But it will get harder.
Don't get me wrong. I moved to California, keeping my work in Europe (mostly) because I love America. This IS one of the best places to be on our planet.
Besides education for cheap. No Go here.
I do not have any solution for this obvious problem. But what to do with them people? I am not political at all, I am just a CodeMonkey.
...The march of technology simply shifts the jobs, and in many cases to better paying ones. ....
That was the way things used to be, maybe. It's possible that new technologies, etc. are now turning things the other way. For example, automated processes are one reason why there are too many lawyers these days - and too many legalized forms of extortion, such as patent and copyright trolling. The lawyers are getting hungry. And so it's no accident, perhaps, that the only place where it's still legal to extort people is in the legal system.
OK this morning I dropped by the Radio Shack in the very affluent New Orleans suburb of Mandeville, near where I live.
Maker stuff FULLY STOCKED. NOTHING on sale in makerville. Quickstarts in stock priced USD$43. They did have a markdown table but it was mostly old toys and bluetooth stuff. They did have the old part number LED strips for $6.95 so I snagged one, and Gigaware webcams half off at $10 which is competitive with other sources so I got one. I think it's clear thi
s is one of the branches that will be staying in business -- they are selling the truly old and excess stuff, but not having a fire sale.
Take the quick start to the counter and ask for a price check. At this point, they are under $10.
Jim
True enough that changes in technology can affect jobs. I'll give the MIT article a more thorough read, but it could have been written 150 years ago at the start of the industrial revolution. The same arguments were made then.
And it'll take the same change as then -- like those after WWI, WWII, during the 50s, etc. -- to make up for the lost jobs. This doesn't happen on its own, and requires wholesale shifts in education. The MIT article talks about the diverging lines in productivity since 2000. That's not nearly enough time for schools to recognize the changes, implement them, and have students come out with the required job skills. At least not when government leaders and many schools are clueless to the problems.
(Not to mention 2000 was a bellwether year all the way around, where business of all kinds began changing dramatically. That's the year the Internet started taking hold, with a return to shopping by mail. The following year was 9/11, which changed the psyche of the public, especially Americans. This just wasn't high technology.)
RS staff getting laid off is, unfortunately, a fact of business, but is not the result of technology wrecking jobs. Other people have simply found a better way of selling, and RS didn't adapt. They didn't go back to school and learn a new trade. There *are* jobs out there, but they change, and so do the skill sets. What's important is not blaming technology, which will always occur, but to keep the pace with better education.
Here's an example of how the country positively addressed the expected change in technology:
Shortly before the end of WWII, where millions of returning servicemen were about to re-enter a job market that had already passed them by, the US government passed the GI Bill, offering free and discounted education so that service personnel could learn new skills. If you leaf through the magazines of the late 40s and 50s you find dozens of ads for correspondence trade schools, most of which were accredited with the government, and accepted GI Bill sponsorship. Without the GI bill, these schools could not have existed. The schools were for things like electronics, hydraulics, machining, drafting, and the others that were in demand during that era.
Instead of driving straight toward another depression with obscenely high unemployment, the factories that had converted to fast assembly lines were instead hiring the people they would have ignored, because the workers had the new education and skills the companies needed.
The GI Bill also encouraged the construction of more homes though low cost loans, and naturally that demand would not have been met without newly trained architects, draftsmen, and other "tech workers" of the day.
These jobs are no longer in high demand. Other jobs are, and if you look at the job boards, you see open positions for the moderately and highly skilled positions left unfilled. THIS is the challenge to address, not the false worry that technology is ruining things. I'm sure the Ancient Greeks and Romans worried about the same things.
"Hey, Claudius, what do think about that new chariot wheel?"
"Not sure, Octavius. I went down to my local Wheel Shack and the sales guy didn't even know about it. Tried to sell me the square version instead. We at the vomitorium stopped using those months ago!"
Both. Once were reliable, once both provided something. Once both ruled their market. Something happened, something that neither one understood, lucky for one, the foundation of which many have already built upon.
So who's more out of touch with consumers, Radio Shack or Microsoft?...
In their relentless race to the bottom, it looks like Radio Shaft won. Microshaft is obviously a close second, though, especially as they cling to their Windows 8 concept. Who couldn't love a touch screen interface designed for computers that have no touch sensors? It's almost thee definition of being out of touch with consumers, human beings, reality. I have put off buying computers for the simple reason I can't stomach Windows 8. The PC makers must feel like their futures have been shackled to an Alzheimer's patient who, no matter how hard they try, just can't seem to snap out of the Reagan years.
I bought "What's a Microcontroller" from RadioShack as an impulse purchase. I went there to buy a 555 and saw the kit on the shelf.
My notion of "programming" was that it was painfully tedious. I thought of it as painting a mural pixel by pixel. I would never have even started if there was no 'brick and mortar' store.
If DigiKey and Mouser are profitable maybe they could buy RS. IMO there has to be a place where you could still browse shelves.
Comments
'
If it wasn't for RadioShack I would not be here on this forum.
'
The engineers note book and other writings from Forest M Mimms III, Sparked my interest.
'
Sad to see it go...
I always thought their only hope was the smaller non-corporate stores, operating in smaller cities and towns, but apparently that's not going to save them. It would have been nice if those stores were able to at least keep using the name after the corporation goes under, but I doubt that will happen. My guess is that the name will be sold to some Chinese company and will only continue as some ghost of it's former self - like so many others, just another brand name slapped on the front of cheap LCD TVs.
Now, every time I go there I have to stand in line for twenty minutes. The place seems to be busy all the time. They have a staff who know what they are selling. Partco is not in a shopping mall, just out in the suburbs.
This city and surroundings has a population of about 1.3 million. It helps that there is a technical university full of students building stuff, and a maker club and so on. That's enough to support Partco very well. (For the commercial customers we have a "real" electronics distributor, ELFA.)
So my thought was that if Radio Shack stuck to it's original component and hobbyist roots the population of the USA should be able to support about 230 such stores. They need to close about 900 of the existing ones and move the rest out to cheaper locations. And get them stocked up properly. It should not be hard to find few hundred young geeks who would like to work there.
Thanks for being upfront about it.
Most people shop based on price.
The RS stores I tend to use ARE staffed with knowledgable people...decades of experience..but I suspect that is the exception.
It is well known that B&M stores are losing the battle with sales on the Internet.
Note the Ebay deals that Erco posts...how would a company compete with those loss leaders?
There's no chance as you suggested - it'd be a bad business model for certain. The future of American companies in this industry must focus on innovation, not commodities which are a already-lost race to the bottom.
Ken Gracey
I think you're exactly right. There's a local business that sounds much like your description of Partco. It stocks primarily components, but also offers tools and kits. The employees aren't exactly electrical engineers, but they are quite savvy. Anyway, the place is *always* busy. More than a few business start-ups can trace their beginnings to conversations between customers while waiting to be served. :-)
-Phil
Note: We also had a shop called Capital Electronics which about a year or two ago went on-line only, Saved many thousands of dollars because I could get the part from pennies to a few dollars and not have to buy a OEM or third party spare board or assembly for a medical imaging device. Only thing I have close to that is first overnight on parts from digikey, mouser, allied and sometimes, Avnet.
Excellent service and support, kits and projects of vetted parts, value adds like "Learn" curriculum, educational services, excellent forum communities PLUS innovation.......remind anyone of any companies they know???
This post should be a sticky!
Yep. Being that you're in San Diego, you probably know of the closures over the years of all sorts of boutique electronics outlets. We still have Fry's, but we've lost Gateway and others over the years. Not enough business to keep them in business. I'm still lamenting the loss of the Lafayette in Pacific Beach. We're talking 40 years ago...
I too.
Over the last 20 some years we have lost dozens of local electronic outlets, surplus houses and supply sources that hobbyists depended on.
I still lamenting the loss of the Great and Wonderful Boeing surplus store...end of an era where America built stuff.
I strongly agree.
Too bad so many American companies don't.
Maker stuff FULLY STOCKED. NOTHING on sale in makerville. Quickstarts in stock priced USD$43. They did have a markdown table but it was mostly old toys and bluetooth stuff. They did have the old part number LED strips for $6.95 so I snagged one, and Gigaware webcams half off at $10 which is competitive with other sources so I got one. I think it's clear this is one of the branches that will be staying in business -- they are selling the truly old and excess stuff, but not having a fire sale.
And now it doesn;t show up in a search of Radio Shack's inventory.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/03/04/radioshack-store-closings-a-complicated-undertaking/
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/05/13/bankruptcy-could-soon-be-radioshack-corporations-b.aspx
I expect to see other B&M retailers to be following this route in the future as the Internet decimates the sector.
ubiquitous - seeming to be found everywhere
"so ubiquitous" - seeming to be found more than everywhere
Q: What's CEO Joe Magnacca pulling down as "compensation" for his so-called leadership?
A: Well, try a half-million dollar 'retention payment' for starters."
Would a high-school dropout picked at random have done any worse?
I don't see how.
retention payment. wow. that one is new to me. A bonus because you do what you are paid for anyways but not run away?
interesting that they do not mention the 'base salary' of Joe the CEO.
'base salary' itself is a nice one too.
As for the high-school dropout. Worse? Depends on the point of view. Worse for Radio Shack or worse for the Managers and the Stock Market?
I am quite sad about things like this.
Maybe it is part of getting old. Like most of us (I guess) I had to work hard to make a decent living. Still do. OK. Being married and divorced a couple of times in my live I lost most of my hard earned income once in a while.
Being a programmer for the a major part of my live I took out a lot of jobs too. Its part of that optimizing. When I in 1992 sold my PC based Cash Register Systems to supermarkets in Germany I could see it clearly when installing the new systems. Those gray schemes of 6 'normal' Cash register lines replaced by 4 'optimized' ones. A lot of sad Cashiers, not really happy to see me and explain the new system.
Sure. Management decided to just replace 4 of 6 register lines and kick out 1/3 of their Cashiers. It paid for the new Systems in one year! That's how it basically got sold by the sales team in the first place.
Over the next 20 years I worked for small and big companies, but overall it is the same. I am a Job killer. Wherever I go. Whatever I program. It's part of the Job.
All of us programmers do that. We kill Jobs. All of us. Optimizing and streamlining stuff. Either we kill existing jobs or we lower the need to hire new people.
Isn't it the same with those CEOs and MBAs? They streamline and optimize and - well - as byproduct kill a lot of Jobs. Like us programmers do for a living.
As I said, I am quite sad about this.
But as a Job Killer by my own profession, I do not really feel to be in the position to point my finger at those 'bad, bad CEOs' and 'Vultures' who run big companies.
When sitting in a Glass House do not throw stones...
Here where I live now, in some far out part of California we have a Radio Shack Franchiser. About the size of living room. Family owned since who knows. Them sell cell phones too, but are eager (and able) to help in any way if you have any electrical problem. (those things you can not fix with WD40 or Duct-Tape).
Without this 'Shack' there is nothing around within 1 1/2 hour drive. In rural Areas like where I live RS is really needed.
just my 2 cents...
Mike
Don't really agree with this. The march of technology simply shifts the jobs, and in many cases to better paying ones. That security job robot might replace some minimum wage guards, but it creates a demand for skilled programmers and field technicians.
The lesson in all this is a hard one for some: you don't want to be in the job market and lack skills.
You might not agree with me, but I do agree with you, since you proved my point.
That security robot provides a couple of better paid jobs for some educated people while killing off a lot of jobs for lower educated people. If not the project would fail, not making profit.
Same with Radio Shack. Closing the stores will make profit and swarming the job market with people who learned to sell cell phones. Not really a useful skill, I know.
But what to do with them? This whole process is going on and more and more skillful jobs get replaced. I remember a time where I felt envy for those guys who got a job as Bank Teller after School, since I was driving trucks now. Poor Guys. Most of them replaced by machines shortly after...
I did work my way up the food-chain by getting (and paying for) more education. Thankfully I had the smarts to do that. But not everybody has. Especial here in the US of A where education is way more expensive then in Europe or Asia. Luck for me that I grew up in Germany. So education was a lot cheaper then here in my beloved States.
So what to do with them people not getting work, because them lack those skills needed? Workers are not needed anymore. What to do?
Like you I am on the lucky side of this equation. Still. I hope I stay ahead of it for the next 15-20 years I need to work. But it will get harder.
Don't get me wrong. I moved to California, keeping my work in Europe (mostly) because I love America. This IS one of the best places to be on our planet.
Besides education for cheap. No Go here.
I do not have any solution for this obvious problem. But what to do with them people? I am not political at all, I am just a CodeMonkey.
But I am worried about the way things develop.
sorry if this is off topic.
Mike
That was the way things used to be, maybe. It's possible that new technologies, etc. are now turning things the other way. For example, automated processes are one reason why there are too many lawyers these days - and too many legalized forms of extortion, such as patent and copyright trolling. The lawyers are getting hungry. And so it's no accident, perhaps, that the only place where it's still legal to extort people is in the legal system.
Check out this:
http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
Jim
And it'll take the same change as then -- like those after WWI, WWII, during the 50s, etc. -- to make up for the lost jobs. This doesn't happen on its own, and requires wholesale shifts in education. The MIT article talks about the diverging lines in productivity since 2000. That's not nearly enough time for schools to recognize the changes, implement them, and have students come out with the required job skills. At least not when government leaders and many schools are clueless to the problems.
(Not to mention 2000 was a bellwether year all the way around, where business of all kinds began changing dramatically. That's the year the Internet started taking hold, with a return to shopping by mail. The following year was 9/11, which changed the psyche of the public, especially Americans. This just wasn't high technology.)
RS staff getting laid off is, unfortunately, a fact of business, but is not the result of technology wrecking jobs. Other people have simply found a better way of selling, and RS didn't adapt. They didn't go back to school and learn a new trade. There *are* jobs out there, but they change, and so do the skill sets. What's important is not blaming technology, which will always occur, but to keep the pace with better education.
Shortly before the end of WWII, where millions of returning servicemen were about to re-enter a job market that had already passed them by, the US government passed the GI Bill, offering free and discounted education so that service personnel could learn new skills. If you leaf through the magazines of the late 40s and 50s you find dozens of ads for correspondence trade schools, most of which were accredited with the government, and accepted GI Bill sponsorship. Without the GI bill, these schools could not have existed. The schools were for things like electronics, hydraulics, machining, drafting, and the others that were in demand during that era.
Instead of driving straight toward another depression with obscenely high unemployment, the factories that had converted to fast assembly lines were instead hiring the people they would have ignored, because the workers had the new education and skills the companies needed.
The GI Bill also encouraged the construction of more homes though low cost loans, and naturally that demand would not have been met without newly trained architects, draftsmen, and other "tech workers" of the day.
These jobs are no longer in high demand. Other jobs are, and if you look at the job boards, you see open positions for the moderately and highly skilled positions left unfilled. THIS is the challenge to address, not the false worry that technology is ruining things. I'm sure the Ancient Greeks and Romans worried about the same things.
"Hey, Claudius, what do think about that new chariot wheel?"
"Not sure, Octavius. I went down to my local Wheel Shack and the sales guy didn't even know about it. Tried to sell me the square version instead. We at the vomitorium stopped using those months ago!"
http://www.thestreet.com/story/12716286/1/microsoft-is-a-total-embarrassment.html
Both. Once were reliable, once both provided something. Once both ruled their market. Something happened, something that neither one understood, lucky for one, the foundation of which many have already built upon.
In their relentless race to the bottom, it looks like Radio Shaft won. Microshaft is obviously a close second, though, especially as they cling to their Windows 8 concept. Who couldn't love a touch screen interface designed for computers that have no touch sensors? It's almost thee definition of being out of touch with consumers, human beings, reality. I have put off buying computers for the simple reason I can't stomach Windows 8. The PC makers must feel like their futures have been shackled to an Alzheimer's patient who, no matter how hard they try, just can't seem to snap out of the Reagan years.
My notion of "programming" was that it was painfully tedious. I thought of it as painting a mural pixel by pixel. I would never have even started if there was no 'brick and mortar' store.
If DigiKey and Mouser are profitable maybe they could buy RS. IMO there has to be a place where you could still browse shelves.