Yes, it is a good thing. People somehow thought we were past that stuff. Some of us never gave it up too.
I'm stunned at the looks I get from most adults when I mention car repair, for example. They say they don't have time. Fair, but when one does not have money, what then?
Makers are driven by that too. It's growing much harder to make money. The harder it gets, the more making there will be.
Peter, you may be proved right on that on the next tech refresh. They are much faster though. RAM is also fast, and faster than the SSD, but only until it's full. Things like CAM eat insane big amounts of RAM. I've topped out 32GB+ machines doing that. SSD drives are worth it, when that happens...
Just gotta cycle them out early. Hate that works, until it doesnt aspect of them. I always wonder why they fail so darn hard. Seems like locking to a read only state would be optimal, but my experiences so far are all bricks.
It's growing much harder to make money. The harder it gets, the more making there will be.
I have been wondering about the economics of this for some time.
Used to be that imaginative people strapped for cash (everyone) would be making all kind of things. John's granny making shirts out of flour bags is a great example. My father made a little money after the second World War by making suitcases out of tea chests and so on.
Today it's almost impossible to make anything cheaper than you can buy it. Most of what can be bought is made down to such a cost that it has a short life and when it's done there is nothing left worth recycling into anything else.
Makers need materials. Those materials are not around.
It was not just that people had little cash and hence could spend time making, it's also that there was not anything like as much cheap stuff around to buy off the shelf.
Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough to see what can be done with what we have today.
The modern day "Maker" movement is no doubt a wonderful thing. But I get a bit queasy thinking about it. Seems like only yesterday that pretty much everybody was a "maker". Mothers were running up clothing and curtains and such on their sewing machines. Fathers were making furniture, fixing the house and car. And lots more beside.
Somehow we entered a period of fifty years or so where people stopped making anything and forgot how to.
The Maker movement may go some way towards rectifying that situation.
I think the only thing that's changed about the Maker movement is that we have now labeled it as such. For the most part, Makers of old did so out of necessity. When it became cheaper/easier to purchase a made product from someone else, the necessity went away and and the Maker stopped making. Those Makers that continued to make started being called "craftsmen" or "artisans". And, to make a living, those craftsmen supplied the other Makers with the cheaper/easier products I just mentioned.
On the other hand, the modern Makers fall into two categories:
* Those who make a thing because it wouldn't otherwise exist.
* Those who make a thing because, while the thing already exists, it's not personalized to the Maker's wants/needs.
What makes the modern Maker different than the Makers of old is that it's less dependent on necessity driven by quality of life. I suspect that, if you look at less affluent countries, you will be more likely to identify the Makers of old. Their quality of life needs still have a more direct impact on what they make. Whereas, the modern Maker (those we readily define as being part of the Maker "movement") are driven, on average, less by quality of life needs and more by intangible needs (including the desire to improve the quality of life of others).
Great post! I agree with the third catagory, though I would just call that hacking.
@Heater, yes. But, that cheap stuff is relative. When one doesn't make much money, that stuff is expensive. Buying used, or fixing throwaway goods, or cobbling something together make a lot of sense to a growing number of people.
As for materials... yes and no. It is true that getting raw materials is more expensive, but it is also true that people throwaway tons of stuff containing good materials too.
Comments
I'm stunned at the looks I get from most adults when I mention car repair, for example. They say they don't have time. Fair, but when one does not have money, what then?
Makers are driven by that too. It's growing much harder to make money. The harder it gets, the more making there will be.
Peter, you may be proved right on that on the next tech refresh. They are much faster though. RAM is also fast, and faster than the SSD, but only until it's full. Things like CAM eat insane big amounts of RAM. I've topped out 32GB+ machines doing that. SSD drives are worth it, when that happens...
Just gotta cycle them out early. Hate that works, until it doesnt aspect of them. I always wonder why they fail so darn hard. Seems like locking to a read only state would be optimal, but my experiences so far are all bricks.
Used to be that imaginative people strapped for cash (everyone) would be making all kind of things. John's granny making shirts out of flour bags is a great example. My father made a little money after the second World War by making suitcases out of tea chests and so on.
Today it's almost impossible to make anything cheaper than you can buy it. Most of what can be bought is made down to such a cost that it has a short life and when it's done there is nothing left worth recycling into anything else.
Makers need materials. Those materials are not around.
It was not just that people had little cash and hence could spend time making, it's also that there was not anything like as much cheap stuff around to buy off the shelf.
Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough to see what can be done with what we have today.
I think the only thing that's changed about the Maker movement is that we have now labeled it as such. For the most part, Makers of old did so out of necessity. When it became cheaper/easier to purchase a made product from someone else, the necessity went away and and the Maker stopped making. Those Makers that continued to make started being called "craftsmen" or "artisans". And, to make a living, those craftsmen supplied the other Makers with the cheaper/easier products I just mentioned.
On the other hand, the modern Makers fall into two categories:
* Those who make a thing because it wouldn't otherwise exist.
* Those who make a thing because, while the thing already exists, it's not personalized to the Maker's wants/needs.
What makes the modern Maker different than the Makers of old is that it's less dependent on necessity driven by quality of life. I suspect that, if you look at less affluent countries, you will be more likely to identify the Makers of old. Their quality of life needs still have a more direct impact on what they make. Whereas, the modern Maker (those we readily define as being part of the Maker "movement") are driven, on average, less by quality of life needs and more by intangible needs (including the desire to improve the quality of life of others).
As this becomes increasingly true, I think you will also see a third category of modern Maker:
* Those who make a thing because they do not want others to tell them what they can or cannot do with the thing.
This will be one of the more interesting aspects of the modern Maker movement to watch...
@Heater, yes. But, that cheap stuff is relative. When one doesn't make much money, that stuff is expensive. Buying used, or fixing throwaway goods, or cobbling something together make a lot of sense to a growing number of people.
As for materials... yes and no. It is true that getting raw materials is more expensive, but it is also true that people throwaway tons of stuff containing good materials too.