I'll bite: as a very traditionally trained woodworker (professionally), there's a very apparent and steep learning curve to mastering manual, traditional skills

I'll bite: as a very traditionally trained woodworker (professionally), there's a very apparent and steep learning curve to mastering manual, traditional skills. Sharpening a plane or chisel (fundamentally the same process) requires a degree of finesse, understanding the process, and how the process achieves the desired result. And then it takes practice. Anybody who mistakenly approaches sharpening with the expectation that they're going to end up with a razor sharp chisel the first time is almost certain to be humbled. Virtually every skill has this learning curve: layout, sawing, dovetailing, carving, etc. None of these skills are hard, per se, but they take practice to learn. The modern maker movement largely sells an illusion that you can sidestep all this thanks to the involvement of computers: just 3D print your thing! Laser cut it! Or CNC router it! And then put an Arduino on it and make it do something! And you know what? All of those also have a steep learning curve. They have the illusion of accessibility, but if you want a good part off the ShopBot, you need to first be able to very precisely describe what you want to end up with, then understand what's an appropriate cutting tool for the material you want to make it out of, understand chip load, speeds, feeds, and a slew of other stuff. And the laser cutter has all of the same hurdles, but slightly different, and I've heard enough people complain about 3D printers to know the same is true there too. Oh yeah, and there are a million paths to get to g-code, all of them with their own quirks and incompatible file formats. Most people get stuck at coming up with a sufficiently precise description of the thing they want to make. If it isn't on thingiverse, it's basically impossible. Most people could learn, but they aren't looking for a hobby that requires that much effort before they see an outcome. So the population that makerspaces are trying to attract is pretty small, at least once folks realize how much effort it is to actually do anything beyond making a canned intro item. Reality, it turns out, contains a surprising amount of detail. Whether you're altering it with traditional tools or modern "maker" tools, you have to put your time in understanding it if you want to move beyond the basics and reach a level of skill and independence.