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I don't see China playing fair re IP theft anytime soon. They undercut everyone by exploiting their poor in their factories. So, in order for the manufacturing

I don't see China playing fair re IP theft anytime soon. They undercut everyone by exploiting their poor in their factories. So, in order for the manufacturing to start happening here in a way we can afford, wages would have to be very very low, or else robots. So, probably robots. I don't see this creating any jobs here.

nostrademons 9y ago
...or move up the value chain. The idea behind that is that if Chinese goods are unreasonably cheap, there are bound to be some things that you can manufacture using these cheap Chinese components that would previously have been economically infeasible. Go take advantage of this and stop wasting time trying to build things that can be built better elsewhere. This was behind the whole hardware bubble of ~2014, along with the Kickstarter/Alibaba/Octopart/Flexport ecosystem and certain new consumer product categories (eg. fitness trackers, smartwatches, VR). The problem is that hardware startups (like any startups, really) are hard, and it's quite challenging to bring together cheap components in a way that actually adds value to a consumer. That, and primary capital markets are fairly inefficient, so oftentimes hardware startups run out of money before they can work out the kinks in their supply chains.