9 ms·

Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?

140 points by pierat 3y ago

I remember when hackerspaces were in every major city, and quite a few medium sized cities also had them. Now, most are gone, for various reasons. What gives?

tynan 3y ago
Vegas, a city with very high quality of life and reasonable real estate prices, has SYN Shop for $50/mo https://synshop.org/ https://synshop.org/
tomcam 3y ago
Not enough members, broken equipment, too expensive
threatofrain 3y ago
I think the finances of hackerspaces were always very brittle and Covid killed a lot of them. https://hackerdojo.org/ https://hackerdojo.org/ https://makernexus.org/ https://makernexus.org/ https://sudoroom.org/ https://sudoroom.org/ https://noisebridge.net/ https://noisebridge.net/
- xeromal 3y ago
  Saw this with a bunch of niche things here in LA. There was this cool welding non-professional welding space that closed down due to covid. I hope something replaces it soon
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Noisebridge came pretty close to going under too. At one point the landlord was asking for an increase in rent to something like 20k/mo before backing down.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    They did end up moving though.
- kiba 3y ago
  The makerspace I am a member of(Freeside Atlanta) manages to survive by the skin of its teeth by moving to a new and bigger space right before the pandemic shutdown and seem to be growing ever since.
- AceJohnny2 3y ago
  Hackerdojo isn't a Hackerspace in the early 2010's meaning of the word anymore. They converted to a more startup incubator kind of place (and so I stopped going). From their website, looks like they're doing quite well! (for those who remember a previous incarnation of the space, with my partner and some friends we painted the 2 Dinos mural)
  - teaearlgraycold 3y ago
    I’ve been there. It’s very quiet and everyone stares daggers at you if you look the type to make noise.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- Animats 3y ago
  Good to know that Noisebridge is still around. Hacker Dojo, as mentioned elsewhere, pivoted to something sort of like WeWork. $150/month. Mostly people slaving away at laptops, pre-COVID. Maker Nexus seems from their web site to be doing OK. Pre-COVID, they were mostly sewing and kids classes, but now they seem to have more heavy metal tools. $150/month. Humanmade, in SF, has government support, and is more oriented to training for trades. They ended up with much of TechShop's equipment. $250/month. There's also the woke shop, Double Union. What killed TechShop was that the gym model doesn't work for maker spaces. Gyms work because people pay but don't show up that much. Maker spaces get people whose day job is to be there making stuff.
  - threatofrain 3y ago
    Hacker Dojo recently fired its executive director and has been running mostly rudderless in terms of the management of the social space for several months. They're been looking to hire a community manager. Unfortunately Hacker Dojo daytime attendance nowadays is quite low, so they're not really attracting people as a WeWork space. I wonder how they're going to pick it back up.
    - Animats 3y ago
      Yes, cramming people tightly into a small room all day is a bad idea. COVID isn't gone, and winter is coming.
      - sokoloff 3y ago
        We live okay in the presence of many endemic diseases.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    No. What killed tech shop is the owner of it took the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle, living out of hotels, causing the fees to be out of line with what was offered. It could have worked if the owner didn't want to live like a billionaire.
- mcint 3y ago
  https://www.acemakerspace.org/ https://www.acemakerspace.org/ https://circuitlaunch.com/ https://circuitlaunch.com/ (working hard to brand away from /makerspace/ or /hackerspace/, but serving a similar audience and purpose, in a professional/entrepreneur/business-building direction).
thomasreggi 3y ago
Fat Cat Fab Lab in NYC is great and still has classing going: https://fatcatfablab.org/classes https://fatcatfablab.org/classes I do wish there was more of them though.
deleted 3y ago
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mikewarot 3y ago
PS:1 in Chicago is still going strong. [1] https://pumpingstationone.org/ https://pumpingstationone.org/
jacknews 3y ago
The economics only really work if you're also a co-working space, and now everyone works at home ...
duchenne 3y ago
ASMBLY in Austin is doing well. Lots of machines/space/people. https://asmbly.org https://asmbly.org
- cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
  Ah cool. Although I already have about half of that equipment, including a compressor, are there any less consumption-oriented gatherings of tech and maker people near ATX?
- StillBored 3y ago
  I like what those guys are doing, but frankly its simply to far away at this point for me to justify the once or twice a year I might want to use a lathe/mill. Partially because I tend to have my own "hacker space" in my house given the last couple decades of acquiring tools. But, what I think we need to do in Austin is figure out how to get the local school districts to open up the high school machine shops, electronics labs/etc on weekends/whatever. I've seen the insides of Anderson High, and more recently Vandegrift, and both of them have tooling that far exceeds what most hackerspaces can only dream about. They don't have much in the way of pictures of their lab space but there is one on this page https://www.viperbots.org/home https://www.viperbots.org/home of the cleanest lathe you will every see and in the background one if their vertical mills and another picture of a tormach 1100 MX (a ~$40k mill).Plus at least for 3 months out of the year the lockers/etc are basically vacant and there is a few thousand square feet of light industrial workspace along with electronics labs full of scopes, power supplies and soldering stations. Piles of 3d printers, and unlike libraries the noise of a big milling machine isn't going to be heard in the quiet spaces in the library. So, there are natural hacker spaces all over town if one can figure out how to protect the tools from random idiots and convince the school districts that they can get more mentors/etc, and maybe even raise some revenue if people are willing to pay for access. PS: In a state that tends to underfund their teachers its amazing how much money a FIRST robotics program can get from industry in the wealthy parts of town when the sponsorships are $5k-10k. Of course its peanuts compared with the football program in many cases. Ex that high schools stadium https://texasbob.com/stadium/stadium.php?id=1312 https://texasbob.com/stadium/stadium.php?id=1312
dehrmann 3y ago
I wonder if it's that the people go who to these places tend to like to build for themselves and tinker rather than build with a customer in mind (nothing wrong with that), and similar people run the spaces in a similar way, so they're run more like hobbies than businesses.
- c22 3y ago
  From everything I've seen, the more you run your hacker/maker space like a business the more likely it is to fail.
seltzered_ 3y ago
Might be worth searching for: - TechShop and it's fall - I remember one person arguing hackerspaces may be better run as a nonprofit model. - The rise of small-scale maker capabilities within public institutions like libraries. I considered signing up for a maker space last year and it made more sense to pay for a second library that happened to have a good maker lab. - The rise of cheaper or more accessible prototype manufacturing (e.g. pcbway , sendcutsend, etc.). - The other threads trying to save spaces, like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32245086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32245086 (2022)
- cableshaft 3y ago
  Yeah, my local library has a pretty decent makerspace in its basement, at least if you're making smaller things. These are the machines that are currently there: * Prusa 3D Printer * Hic Top CR-10 3D Printer * Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer * Brother ScanNCut * Silhouette CAMEO * Silhouette Vinyl Cutter * EverSewn Sparrow X2 Embroidery Machine * Brother PE900 Embroidery Machine * Carvey CNC Desktop Fabricator * Glowforge Laser Cutter * Sawgrass Sublimation Printer It also has a lot of audio recording equipment with soundbooths, and a bunch of lighting and photography/video equipment.
  - Solvency 3y ago
    Do you live in the wealthiest city in America? I've been to 11 libraries and absolutely none of them have anything on that list.
    - juahan 3y ago
      Here in Finland the libraries often have that kind of stuff, in smaller places maybe a little less, but larger cities have nice amount of stuff to use and/or loan.
      - cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
        Marry or adopt me, would you? ;D Finish passport is good as a Singaporean one. I have a Prusa Mk3S+ with MMU, head improvement, and Bear kit. Also have maybe 40 rolls of filament from glow in the dark, UV reactive, and more or less every color and an Octoprint with cameras and a power shutoff. The only problem is my electronics lab is 60 Hz equipment. ]:
bobse 3y ago
[flagged]
thinkio 3y ago
I went to one in Birmingham a couple of times but it was boring and the people who used it were tedious and condescending. Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that.
eddiezane 3y ago
denhac is alive and well! We had our 15th anniversary party earlier this month and recently crossed 350 members. We're entirely volunteer run with no paid employees. I currently serve as vice-chair of the board. I joined right before COVID and my focus has been helping get policies and processes in place to continue to help us scale. We've seen pretty rapid growth post COVID and are seeing ~10 new members a month. Happy to answer any questions (when I wake up). Be sure to stop and say hi If you're ever in Denver, CO! https://denhac.org/ https://denhac.org/
karmicthreat 3y ago
They kind of came to be when the Bush financial meltdown happend. Unemployment was getting high in the late 00's. People were trying to develop new skills or build cottage industries. It feels like there is less of a hustle with all that now. Plus makerspaces were just difficult to make viable and really you are probably better off spending that time on any other endeavor. A group of us out here tried starting one in West Michigan and it sputtered along for a while. Financials and interest were never able to balance out. The Geek Group out here did a little "better" but the owners and volunteers there basically burned themselves out constantly. Then the founder got nailed for bitcoin crimes and that was the end.
- sircastor 3y ago
  I had a dream of running a Hackerspace, and no matter which way I crunched the numbers it just wasn't financially viable - not as a business.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  agree - plenty of young people see the darksides of constant tech engagement, and do not have the happy-garage experience to draw on, post-Internet
unit_circle 3y ago
Sector67 is still healthy! They have a smart, incredibly dedicated and frugal BDFL who got them through some lean times. I think in general it only works if there is a strong community / third place thing going. I always saw that as their biggest offering--a way to get out of the house without drinking or spending money. The making / hacking thing is just something to enjoy together.
btbuildem 3y ago
https://foulab.org/ https://foulab.org/ is alive and well!
astrange 3y ago
Like every other issue in American cities, poor land use means you can never afford to have anything except what was already there. I feel like I read a story about running one in the Bay that was just about having to deal with crustpunks and people having sex in the machine rooms. Although I think libraries have equipment like 3D printers these days.
- cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
  The obstacle to living in a remote area is being in the radius of major medical and groceries. I'm looking for a 3000+ sq ft single-story house and workshop on cheap land without natural hazards within 15-20 minutes of somewhere with a Trader Joe's.
aendruk 3y ago
Same question for LUGs.
- __turbobrew__ 3y ago
  LUGs core reason for existence — sharing Linux and systems administration knowledge — is no longer relevant. You can learn mostly everything you need to get to journeyman level experience online and in books. Once you want to achieve master level proficiency you join special interest groups and go to conferences. The LUGs I have been to are mostly social groups running off the inertia of old members which were around back when LUGs were relevant, an inertia which is slowing down with the age of the members. I served on the board for a local LUG and there is still some interest from the community but not like back in the day when they could pull 100s of people in a meeting and IBM or Redhat would buy free pizza for everyone in the early 2000s.
- graublau 3y ago
  The distinction at between operating systems is in 2023 pretty negligible in practice. Most people work on some kind of UNIX on Windows/Mac/Linux. OS tinkering/distrohopping tends to be an anti-pattern, a waste of time/not task oriented in any way.
- whatisprogress 3y ago
  Linux has become a standardized tool that is pretty simple to use. Linux used to be cumbersome with a high barrier to enter, now it is common and simple to use. Some of Linux's incredible innovations have been replicated by competitors. There are now lots of classes about Linux. Windows feature have also become more competitive with Linux features. You don't need to dual boot a PC to use Linux. You don't need to freak out about the refresh rate of the monitor, or build a custom knoppix instance for a kiosk machine, with cramfs and unionfs manually compiled into the kernel. (windows didn't have an easy to install kiosk built into the OS) Instead of ext2, or ext3 (vs fat32) you can now use NTFS. The Linux kernel was way more stable compared to XP. Starting with Vista, when the graphics driver crashed, the OS just reloaded the driver instead of BSOD. The supported hardware for windows has also increased dramatically. (ARM processors, embedded, etc.) At the same time that Windows was making inroads, Java, Apple, and Android have made significant inroads in their own ways. Overall, linux has become more user friendly (reducing the learning curve); training has become common, and multiple companies have become more competitive with Linux. This has reduced the demand for less structured training of LUGs.
mdasen 3y ago
Real Estate. So many quirky things are viable when there's cheaper rent, cheap buying opportunities, or underutilized space. If I could buy space for $150/sq ft, I might have some extra cash, like the idea of investing in real estate, and like the idea of having a cool community hackerspace. If it's going to cost me $1,000/sq ft, I'm barely going to be able to afford the space I want to live in. If a group of us can rent at cheap prices we're saving money on our housing and paying for a shared second space doesn't cost that much. Over the past 15 years or so, property prices have soared in so many cities. It really makes it hard to afford space for quirky things. There are certainly plenty of examples of ones that still exist and enough determination and you can still make things happen, but I think the rising cost of real estate is putting a damper on things like this.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  SF Bay Area checking in
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- getwiththeprog 3y ago
  Community spaces are always on the move. So I don't think it's rent so much as the core members not keeping up with the inevitable need to move on. One I used to attend now gets space from a University http://hackerspace-adelaide.org.au/ http://hackerspace-adelaide.org.au/ There are lots of community spaces if people can find and network with them. But it takes work and dedication. Money is nearly always a second. The first hack group I fell in with (2600) met in a restaurant, and it worked and evolved into other groups including a hackerspace.
- rapjr9 3y ago
  So now that commercial real estate is being underutilized due to work from home does that mean the hackerspaces and artist collectives will return due to cheap real estate prices?
  - ja27 3y ago
tetsuhamu 3y ago
They're still around. If you can't find the kind you're looking for, you can make one!
sircastor 3y ago
Aside from community (which is incredible important), Hackerspaces are a method of tool-sharing. In the last decade, many of the popular tools that used to live exclusively at a Hackerspace can be now be found in schools, libraries, and homes: 3D Printers, lasercutters, electronics toolkits, etc. And 3 years of pandemic isolation meant that people weren't able to show up anyway. One of my favorite spaces (though distant from where I live) - Metrix Create:Space - shut down down in 2018 in part because people didn't have as much of a reason to show up [1] [1] https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/08/tech-junkies-and-robot-tinkerers-lose-capitol-hill-haven-as-metrix-createspace-closes-doors/ https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/08/tech-junkies-and-...
- clemailacct1 3y ago
  Metrix!!! I used to live across the street from them and would go there often. Capitol Hill in Seattle is outrageously expensive.
mdtrooper 3y ago
And the hacklabs? In Madrid (Spain), now there is one alive.
dotnet00 3y ago
At my university, they already had the hackerspace locked down under all sorts of training sessions that needed to be scheduled and attended to be allowed access, then when covid came around they started by canceling all trainings, then eventually shut the space down entirely citing covid. Now that things have reopened they simply never brought it back.
INTPenis 3y ago
Maybe you'll get as many answers as there are hackers here but from my own perspective it seems it went the same way as all other communities. Internal strife, odd personalities, personal differences tore them apart slowly. It's not all bad. In my city it seems the hacker spaces organized by individuals were replaced by maker spaces funded and organized by the city. At least two that I know of, that are now basically free co-working spaces with 3D printers, meeting rooms, free wifi and such. One is run by the agency that ran the ccTLD back in the early 2000s, called Goto10 in Malmö and Stockholm. Very nice space to work at. The other is run by the city of Malmö called Stapeln and is in a basement. Besides those I know of at least two hacker spaces run by individuals that were still going last I checked. The pandemic hit them pretty hard of course.
- gotts 3y ago
  City funded(subsidized?) maker spaces is such a great idea
  - samtho 3y ago
    It can get messy, especially because the very thing the city can offer (real estate) ends up being a political pawn. With no provision in the city’s charter to protect it, anything the city provides is going to be quick to the chopping block. The better way for a city to help is let the local library system manage the relationship or itself be the steward of the space.
    - morkalork 3y ago
      This is what my municipality does. There's a maker space run out of the main library with 3d printers, CNCs, laser cutters etc. Just need a library card and to pay some usage fees for materials to access it.
      - samtho 3y ago
        I honestly think a library is the best place for a general public makerspace for 90% of cases. That last 10% encompasses famous ones in specific cities like Noisebridge in SF or c-base in Berlin (all of which can only exist in that city’s culture scene) and also smaller, niche spaces such as Curious Forge, DIY or die (sadly defunct), etc. My local library system offers a limited “makerspace” program[0] that does some of this stuff within the library, but I think something that should be more integrated is their Library of Things[1] program which allows patrons to take home all sorts of tools and equipment that are just not used very often. I think more library systems should be granted the freedom and funding by their governing bodies to create a makerspace. Footnote: The other option I didn’t address was to have schools/universities maintain them, but those are always reserved for student and faculty. [0]: https://www.saclibrary.org/Education/Tech-Creation/Makerspaces https://www.saclibrary.org/Education/Tech-Creation/Makerspac... [1]: https://www.saclibrary.org/Books-Media/Specialty-Checkouts/Library-of-Things https://www.saclibrary.org/Books-Media/Specialty-Checkouts/L...
rlayton2 3y ago
Ballarat Hackerspace member checking in here. Hackerspaces require ongoing work and support. They aren't great businesses, but are great community spaces. To that end, you need an ongoing commitment of people to provide their time, resources, and effort. We are extremely lucky in Ballarat that we have such a group of committed members, as well as very generous sponsorship. We've paid that back through ongoing community involvement and releasing many free resources, but we are lucky to be in that position.
- sen 3y ago
  Another member checking in. Australia in general seems to have decent Hackerspaces in all the major cities, sometimes multiple, as well as good growing support from the Library network with their own makerspaces (including regular workshops for 3D printing etc).
nshkr 3y ago
Helped start a space long ago. It struggled to stay afloat and eventually was subsumed by the local uni. Now, my dream of a modern hs is limited by lack of funds and..space.
cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
Fads come and go. Too many people just wanted to create an elitism to lord over others or consume a movement than do anything productive, creative, and interesting as few did. I left for good when I discovered they promised to give to charity and gave nothing. Cheap, privileged, selfish, clueless, trash people.
- samtho 3y ago
  This is a very disparaging view and I’m sorry you fell victim to what sounds like grifters and con artists. This broad characterization is not fair to the hackerspaces that continue to this day, however.
__turbobrew__ 3y ago
A large local hackerspace in my city simply went broke over covid. Real estate and operating costs got more expensive and the business model couldn’t keep up. Unfortunately just piling a bit of cash between your friends can no longer get you a dingy commercial space to hang out.
drusepth 3y ago
I ran a small one in Missouri and have a few friends that ran ones here and there over the years. The two big reasons I and my friends don't run them anymore: rent costs and COVID.
samtho 3y ago
I was involved in makerspaces for a while. While I have not given up on them, I will admit that I have become thoroughly disillusioned with the idea. Real estate is expensive and a makerspace should be near public transport (which will likely be closer to the city center) but should be able to to facilitate some parking and/or transfer of large items to/from a vehicle. Cheap real estate does come in varieties that support the above. Most makerspaces carelessly target people to pay membership and nothing else. This creates a membership base that primarily goes to the space for their projects and goes home. This kind of member will drop the membership the moment they realize they can just buy the one or two machines they need and keep it at home (see techshop). This becomes a treadmill very quickly. Makerspaces need to focus on building a community of people who have the tools at home and choose to work there because is a great place to collaborate, but the problem here is that those people don’t have a ton of disposable income (or at least reliably recurring income) to spend on a membership. Leadership needs to balance the financial sustainability motive with the community sustainability one. A makerspace staring up needs: * to be a nonprofit * good value for rent * one to two years of runway in the bank * founding members who can work from the makerspace * a set of tools that are more difficult to have at home * night events that happen several times per week Basically, you need a lot of money, patience, and City buy-in helps a lot. Municipalities should be lining up to give money to people who want to manage theses sorts of community spaces, they are innovation and educational centers that can create an absurd amount of value for the relatively small investment. Usually it’s difficult to fill a community space with smart, competent people who actually want to help instead of grifters, sales people, and those who lack curiosity. The best experiences feel like an eternal September, and the bad ones just feel like accelerated enshitification. How do you attract people that want to spend their time being part of a community and dissuade those who are looking to only consume resources? I think a lot of spaces fail because they rely too much on paying members who never become part of the community and will drop the expensive subscription when it becomes convenient for them to do so. My vision for a makerspace is one where anyone can use it for free, you can become a member for some money, and those we want to stick around, we pay a small amount to stay. Using tools that are relatively safe should be mostly self certification. Tools that’s cause injuries or are expensive should require training or you should just send a job in (CNC mill). The actual real estate needs to be held by a trust and should be available to the makerspace as long as they are active.
mcint 3y ago
I spent Saturday, Sunday, and part of Friday tabling at Maker Faire for Hacker/Maker-spaces[1] and for Noisebridge[2]. With some other folks who tabled all of last weekend too. There are many! Also, more importantly, other institutions have taken up ideas from them and offer tools and services to address the same needs. Libraries and colleges in many communities host makerspace tools, tool libraries The maker movement has taken off, Etsy, home crafting, and sharing and selling projects at all varient of levels of polish, Finding like-minded individuals, for all manner of interests, is possible through meetups. I suppose, they've unbundled. I would say: look closer, they're maybe more present than ever, but in parts, and adapted in ways that best complement the psychological demographics of the places they serve. [1]: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces [2]: https://noisebridge.net/ https://noisebridge.net/
deleted 3y ago
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matthewfelgate 3y ago
Anyone in Surrey, UK, we have just moved our MakerSpace to the Farnham/Aldershot border and it is very active: https://www.shmakerspace.org/ https://www.shmakerspace.org/
solarkraft 3y ago
What do you mean what happened? "Most are gone"? Do we live in different realities or just different places? Every major European city I visit has its own, or multiple, nice hackerspaces. Often smaller cities as well. Most/many of them are coming out of the pandemic more enthusiastically than before.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  In the US most are gone
- q3k 3y ago
  Yeah, I was very confused by this post. Just the city I live in (Munich) has at least three community-oriented hackerspaces/makerspaces, and a bunch more 'open workshops' and commercial spots. Here's a list of _just_ Chaos Computer Club chapters around Germany: https://www.ccc.de/de/club/erfas https://www.ccc.de/de/club/erfas
iancmceachern 3y ago
It's like most things, real estate. Most hackerspaces I've been a part of couldn't or barely could afford their rent. Memberships were already too expensive, and they were constantly just getting squeezed between membership revenue and hard costs. Ultimately it doesn't add up. I think a lot of what used to happen at makerspaces has transitioned to libraries. Lots of libraries have 3d printers, et. Now, are free, and don't have the problem with affording space.
- StopTheWorld 3y ago
  From my knowledge of and participation in hacker spaces - I would say this is it. My understanding is hackerspaces like the L0pht were not paying exorbitant real estate prices, and had a core of founders making decent enough money to pay for the place. On the other hand, some hacker spaces start out very ambitiously with a large space in the center of an expensive city, without as much of dedicated, close, core team to sustain it, and those did less well. Also - when you have a small core team and expenses are too high, it causes friction and stress in the core team, and people want to participate less.
  - rickydroll 3y ago
    other examples of a successful maker spaces are Springfield Telescope Makers in VT and Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston. Both specialize in telescope making and observing. Both clubs have a pool of people will to teach, a core of people maintaining and developing observatories and the clubhouse, and best of all, cheap real estate. Now if we could just get that Harry Potter light putter-outer when it is clear.
    - iancmceachern 3y ago
      Those are both very cool, but I would argue they aren't maker spaces. They seem like telescope making clubs.
      - rickydroll 3y ago
shadoxx 3y ago
Hive13 in Cincinnati seems to be flourishing in all regards! The core membership and leadership has always taken the organization seriously, and that attitude has helped them curate and sustain membership for over a decade now. I just checked their financials (the entire org is open), and it seems like the formula they have continues to sustain their bank account and membership numbers. I think that in general, hackerspaces haven't really gone anywhere. Like most organizations, sometimes they fail due to no fault of their own, or leadership decides to pivot to a more sustainable model - as some have mentioned here a more "WeWork" model. The hackerspaces/makerspaces are still there. You just have to look! https://hive13.org/ https://hive13.org/
CapstanRoller 3y ago
The same reason you no longer see artist spaces or other hubs of creative activity: real estate prices. Cheap commercial real estate is really hard to find. It's no longer viable to get a little warehouse on the edge of town and turn it into something cool.
rendx 3y ago
It seems like most people have given up on the idea of community, sharing, and collective action, and prefer to take pills or other substances against the resulting depression/anxiety/loneliness. Many comments here confirm this attitude, where what they see in spaces is reduced to "shared access to tools". Nobody wants to put in the effort just to have the majority be leeches.
- Kalium 3y ago
  Speaking only for myself, it's very hard to find people who treat community, sharing, and collective action as things to engage with regularly rather than as a way to get access to tools for cheap. It can be exceptionally stressful and anxiety-inducing to manage shared resources under those conditions. It should not be a surprise that some people prefer to not deal with the idea of hackerspace-as-community and seek their community elsewhere.
- ShamelessC 3y ago
  > It seems like most people have given up on the idea of community, sharing, and collective action, and prefer to take pills or other substances against the resulting depression/anxiety/loneliness. Oh, didn’t realize I was watching Fox & Friends.
RecycledEle 3y ago
They cost money. Humans are only so charitable. At some point the cost of fixing what is broken in a hacker space is contrasted against a car repair (or something) and the hacker space looses. This is compounded by the fact that the people who can responsibly use a hacker space usually own the tools or can get them cheap. Those who really want the hacker space have no clue that their incorrect use of the tool will destroy it. I am amazed that any publicly available hacker spaces survived the first week. I ran a hacker space in a school at my last employer. They never had a clue how much time and money went into the hacker space. When I left they asked if I wanted the stuff. They could not understand that two weeks after I left it was all broken, and had no value.
clausecker 3y ago
In Germany, they are alive and well with new hackerspaces being founded frequently. There was a pretty big slog due to the Corona restrictions, but it's slowly all coming back.
- mkmk3 3y ago
  Netherlands too, even in my smaller city, I know of one that has a pretty serious space thanks to some grants. But as others said, libraries can also fulfill the same function. I went to Zwolle recently and saw that they even seem to have a regular volunteer repair cafe. Thought that was super cool
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons The most sustainable models I've seen have these features: - Access to the physical space is free for non-members only during restricted time periods - A small monthly membership fee is required to access the space during other hours - Mandatory training is required for any complex/expensive equipment (laser cutters, 3d printers, welding equipment)
j0hnyl 3y ago
They are expensive to run and don't make any money.
rickcarlino 3y ago
We’re doing just fine here in the Midwest. Come visit us if you’re in the Chicago suburbs. https://www.Fox.build https://www.Fox.build
nrfulton 3y ago
All of the hackerspaces I've been to in the past 15 years are still around: St. Louis: https://archreactor.org/ https://archreactor.org/ Pittsburgh: https://hackpgh.org/ https://hackpgh.org/ Boston (albeit bummed they left their Somverville location): https://www.artisansasylum.com/ https://www.artisansasylum.com/ Many undergraduate-focused higher ed institutions have copied the makerspace/hackerspace model, primarily as an amenity for students. These are, in some cases, clopen to the public (sic). Public libraries have also copied the model. Reviewing the data, AFAICT: 1. The hackerspace-as-business model largely didn't work. 2. The community-run 501(c)3 model remains viable in mid-sized cities. 3. Organizations like hacker spaces have a really hard time of it in larger cities, mostly because of rent. 4. In places that are too rural or too expensive to support hackerspaces, other institutions often provide partial solutions which are not hackerspaces per se but offer similar amenities. Given that the primary barrier seems to be real estate, I am honestly mildly surprised that major donor hasn't tried to seed a legacy by copying the Carnegie Library formula but for hackerspaces. Seems like a much better legacy-building project than adding an extra half bajillion to a university endowment or starting yet another charter school experiment.
samtho 3y ago
Most traditional hackerspaces either went defunct or pivoted more towards coworking. The allure is pretty obvious: way higher margins. No tools to maintain, no giant safety concerns, just need tables, chairs, and vending. Also, people (or rather companies) who are willing to pay for coworking usually have more resources than “makers” who do not have the equipment or space at home to house projects. Tech shop tried this coworking model on a makerspace, and we known how it turned out. While it had some internal problems (from what I’m aware), it was never going to be sustainable because, at the prices they were charging, those who could afford it could usually afford some sort of desktop version of what they used tech shop for, except for maybe the water jet and plasma cutters. It was a self service machine shop that required you to invest your time in training to be able to even utilize, and no real community experience to speak of. It became a lot of people doing professional work, a few hours of machine time each per week, and they would go home. But all this is to say that a makerspace (nor a coworking space for that matter) is a hackerspace automatically, that titled is earned. The point at which a shared space like this becomes a hackerspace is the point where it becomes “cool”, where the community has reached critical mass, events and meetups can happen periodically, and it becomes a hub for the community. Most hackerspaces that went under recently will have claimed it was because the pandemic and lockdowns, but those events were merely the catalyst to their demise. A lot of people in this thread posit that the community is nice or at least important, I disagree. The hackerspace is the community. Hackerspaces that could not keep up with rapid community attrition during the pandemic post-lockdown were left them resource-constrained, unable to keep up with financial commitments. Most in this position chose to close. The community (more specifically the community members’ network) provides the stability as nearly all opportunities, grants, donations, and other contributions originate from people who built or are active participants in the community. An actively shrinking community effectively lobotomizes the hackerspace, leaving nothing more than an empty shell. Coworking spaces are for those who want to play office (WeWork, HackerDojo) Makerspaces are glorified tool shares (TechShop) A true hackerspace is a community space for those who are curious, creative, and passionate about doing things just because they think it’s interesting or cool.
Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
The one in my town shifted focus from hackerspace to Antifa-adjacent sex club. The core founders who put in all the work to keep the space going either got squeezed out, got jobs and social obligations, or straight up died.
- reaperman 3y ago
  Is it still ostensibly a hackerspace or did the sign on the door change?
  - Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - reaperman 3y ago
      > What, you're looking to join an Antifa-adjacent sex club? Please re-read the HN commenting guidelines. This is not appropriate. ———————- Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Eschew flamebait.
      - Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
        The same can be said for a snarky “please reread…” instead of directly addressing the comments that you take issue with. And is not the strongest interpretation a friendly tongue-in-cheek rather than a cross-examining demand for you to justify your follow-up question? I know some communities like to use the /s convention, but under that principle it seems redundant to me.
ValentineC 3y ago
I'm involved in the Singapore hackerspace. I think our main problem was that once we had a comfortable core base of members a few years ago, we stopped recruiting more because some of us were afraid that bad people would join as members and none of us would have good enough reasons to kick them out. When the pandemic hit, some of our members moved on with their lives — they moved back overseas, got married, bought their own places, etc. That caused our membership revenue to take quite a hit. We made the mistake of moving during the pandemic because we thought that we could save on rent, but the new place turned out to be highly unpopular among those that didn't speak up (it was bigger and cheaper, but there were more flights of stairs to climb). More people left. Newcomers tend to have a very transactional view of the space. Some people and groups continue to exploit the space because it's "cheap". A bunch seem to be quite happy to pay their membership dues and leave a mess after they're done, because some of the rooms don't get used very much, and enough time passes in between so we don't really know who we need to give behavioural feedback to. We've had people use the space as a hostel because they "tend to work late at night", and an "open source" group thinking that they could share access credentials among their own members because they paid slightly more than a usual membership subscription for one single month (we don't have a group membership tier). Not enough people want to take long-term ownership over the space now — many think that a hackerspace director is also the space manager, and the person that's always around to fix things up and clean up messes. Creating a culture where members are ideally empowered to take charge of the environment is difficult. I guess the overarching problem is that it's hard to get an active community going again without critical mass, and expect a bunch of newcomers to contribute significant amounts of ownership and money towards maintaining the space.
ogou 3y ago
I've been a paid member of 3 hacker spaces and a couple of niche creative communities over 20 years or so. There was a time when people were actually interested in experimenting, tinkering, and holding workshops. I think that has been replaced by hustle culture. I saw a lot of shops turn into laser cutter and C & C focussed fabrication shops. People were using the equipment to run under the table sign shops and Etsy production lines. They would book the equipment for 6-8 hour blocks and pay a premium. Indie users could never get a slot and learners were even more frustrated. There was rarely a density of users in there at the same time because everything was booked. The actual community just faded away. The infrastructure of shared resource communities got exploited by people who are purely motivated by money. Another challenge is governance. Managing a volunteer organisation can be tricky, especially if a few get paid for various things. Passionate people burn out and leave. That leaves a management vacuum that is easily exploited by people with an agenda. I watched one shop get completely taken over by political issues and the original mission was left behind for identity focus. It was a real bummer. The only ones that seem to survive have a strong professional management core and strict monetary oversight.
koromak 3y ago
William Osman and Allen Pan commented on it in a recent-ish podcast, Allen used to run a space. Basically, the politics of the situation is impossible. Maintaining a space like that costs an incredible amount of money and time. You'd hope that the community could pitch in together, but you always end up with a single person being the primary patron, spending their own time and money, while others abuse the space and the machines for themselves. The only spaces that seem to have survived are ones that gets large grants from some institution like a university or local government, and therefore can be run like a business, with leadership and staffing.
_spduchamp 3y ago
We got married, had kids, and a pandemic. Though under utilization was a long running problem before all that. As someone who spent many years as a volunteer at a couple spaces, there were a lot of lonely nights of nobody showing up. Getting adults off the couch and out for an evening of nerding out with free access to laser cutters, 3D printers, and well equipped electronics workstations is more challenging than one would imagine.
dangerface 3y ago
Covid
ja27 3y ago
Mine (Tampa Hackerspace) is alive and reasonably well. COVID was a big drag but we clamped down on expenses and had built up a nest egg in case of emergencies so the financial hit didn't do us in. It really wiped out a lot of the social aspects of the community and we're still struggling to get those back. Rent hurts but we were lucky to lock in a long-term contract with a fixed annual percentage increase. It's still by far our biggest expense. My opinion and experience is that a makerspace / hackerspace can only succeed with at least one person that's nearly 100% dedicated to running it, mostly without pay. The founder(s) probably have 5-7 years before they totally burn out so unless they've found and built up some others that are just as dedicated, it's hard to sustain a space.

140 points by pierat 3y ago

I remember when hackerspaces were in every major city, and quite a few medium sized cities also had them. Now, most are gone, for various reasons. What gives?

tynan 3y ago

Vegas, a city with very high quality of life and reasonable real estate prices, has SYN Shop for $50/mo https://synshop.org/ https://synshop.org/

tomcam 3y ago

Not enough members, broken equipment, too expensive

threatofrain 3y ago

I think the finances of hackerspaces were always very brittle and Covid killed a lot of them. https://hackerdojo.org/ https://hackerdojo.org/ https://makernexus.org/ https://makernexus.org/ https://sudoroom.org/ https://sudoroom.org/ https://noisebridge.net/ https://noisebridge.net/

xeromal 3y ago
Saw this with a bunch of niche things here in LA. There was this cool welding non-professional welding space that closed down due to covid. I hope something replaces it soon
AlotOfReading 3y ago
Noisebridge came pretty close to going under too. At one point the landlord was asking for an increase in rent to something like 20k/mo before backing down.
- fragmede 3y ago
  They did end up moving though.
kiba 3y ago
The makerspace I am a member of(Freeside Atlanta) manages to survive by the skin of its teeth by moving to a new and bigger space right before the pandemic shutdown and seem to be growing ever since.
AceJohnny2 3y ago
Hackerdojo isn't a Hackerspace in the early 2010's meaning of the word anymore. They converted to a more startup incubator kind of place (and so I stopped going). From their website, looks like they're doing quite well! (for those who remember a previous incarnation of the space, with my partner and some friends we painted the 2 Dinos mural)
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  I’ve been there. It’s very quiet and everyone stares daggers at you if you look the type to make noise.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
Animats 3y ago
Good to know that Noisebridge is still around. Hacker Dojo, as mentioned elsewhere, pivoted to something sort of like WeWork. $150/month. Mostly people slaving away at laptops, pre-COVID. Maker Nexus seems from their web site to be doing OK. Pre-COVID, they were mostly sewing and kids classes, but now they seem to have more heavy metal tools. $150/month. Humanmade, in SF, has government support, and is more oriented to training for trades. They ended up with much of TechShop's equipment. $250/month. There's also the woke shop, Double Union. What killed TechShop was that the gym model doesn't work for maker spaces. Gyms work because people pay but don't show up that much. Maker spaces get people whose day job is to be there making stuff.
- threatofrain 3y ago
  Hacker Dojo recently fired its executive director and has been running mostly rudderless in terms of the management of the social space for several months. They're been looking to hire a community manager. Unfortunately Hacker Dojo daytime attendance nowadays is quite low, so they're not really attracting people as a WeWork space. I wonder how they're going to pick it back up.
  - Animats 3y ago
    Yes, cramming people tightly into a small room all day is a bad idea. COVID isn't gone, and winter is coming.
    - sokoloff 3y ago
      We live okay in the presence of many endemic diseases.
- fragmede 3y ago
  No. What killed tech shop is the owner of it took the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle, living out of hotels, causing the fees to be out of line with what was offered. It could have worked if the owner didn't want to live like a billionaire.
mcint 3y ago
https://www.acemakerspace.org/ https://www.acemakerspace.org/ https://circuitlaunch.com/ https://circuitlaunch.com/ (working hard to brand away from /makerspace/ or /hackerspace/, but serving a similar audience and purpose, in a professional/entrepreneur/business-building direction).

thomasreggi 3y ago

Fat Cat Fab Lab in NYC is great and still has classing going: https://fatcatfablab.org/classes https://fatcatfablab.org/classes I do wish there was more of them though.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mikewarot 3y ago

PS:1 in Chicago is still going strong. [1] https://pumpingstationone.org/ https://pumpingstationone.org/

jacknews 3y ago

The economics only really work if you're also a co-working space, and now everyone works at home ...

duchenne 3y ago

ASMBLY in Austin is doing well. Lots of machines/space/people. https://asmbly.org https://asmbly.org

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
Ah cool. Although I already have about half of that equipment, including a compressor, are there any less consumption-oriented gatherings of tech and maker people near ATX?
StillBored 3y ago
I like what those guys are doing, but frankly its simply to far away at this point for me to justify the once or twice a year I might want to use a lathe/mill. Partially because I tend to have my own "hacker space" in my house given the last couple decades of acquiring tools. But, what I think we need to do in Austin is figure out how to get the local school districts to open up the high school machine shops, electronics labs/etc on weekends/whatever. I've seen the insides of Anderson High, and more recently Vandegrift, and both of them have tooling that far exceeds what most hackerspaces can only dream about. They don't have much in the way of pictures of their lab space but there is one on this page https://www.viperbots.org/home https://www.viperbots.org/home of the cleanest lathe you will every see and in the background one if their vertical mills and another picture of a tormach 1100 MX (a ~$40k mill).Plus at least for 3 months out of the year the lockers/etc are basically vacant and there is a few thousand square feet of light industrial workspace along with electronics labs full of scopes, power supplies and soldering stations. Piles of 3d printers, and unlike libraries the noise of a big milling machine isn't going to be heard in the quiet spaces in the library. So, there are natural hacker spaces all over town if one can figure out how to protect the tools from random idiots and convince the school districts that they can get more mentors/etc, and maybe even raise some revenue if people are willing to pay for access. PS: In a state that tends to underfund their teachers its amazing how much money a FIRST robotics program can get from industry in the wealthy parts of town when the sponsorships are $5k-10k. Of course its peanuts compared with the football program in many cases. Ex that high schools stadium https://texasbob.com/stadium/stadium.php?id=1312 https://texasbob.com/stadium/stadium.php?id=1312

dehrmann 3y ago

I wonder if it's that the people go who to these places tend to like to build for themselves and tinker rather than build with a customer in mind (nothing wrong with that), and similar people run the spaces in a similar way, so they're run more like hobbies than businesses.

c22 3y ago
From everything I've seen, the more you run your hacker/maker space like a business the more likely it is to fail.

seltzered_ 3y ago

Might be worth searching for: - TechShop and it's fall - I remember one person arguing hackerspaces may be better run as a nonprofit model. - The rise of small-scale maker capabilities within public institutions like libraries. I considered signing up for a maker space last year and it made more sense to pay for a second library that happened to have a good maker lab. - The rise of cheaper or more accessible prototype manufacturing (e.g. pcbway , sendcutsend, etc.). - The other threads trying to save spaces, like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32245086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32245086 (2022)

cableshaft 3y ago
Yeah, my local library has a pretty decent makerspace in its basement, at least if you're making smaller things. These are the machines that are currently there: * Prusa 3D Printer * Hic Top CR-10 3D Printer * Ender-3 S1 Pro 3D Printer * Brother ScanNCut * Silhouette CAMEO * Silhouette Vinyl Cutter * EverSewn Sparrow X2 Embroidery Machine * Brother PE900 Embroidery Machine * Carvey CNC Desktop Fabricator * Glowforge Laser Cutter * Sawgrass Sublimation Printer It also has a lot of audio recording equipment with soundbooths, and a bunch of lighting and photography/video equipment.
- Solvency 3y ago
  Do you live in the wealthiest city in America? I've been to 11 libraries and absolutely none of them have anything on that list.
  - juahan 3y ago
    Here in Finland the libraries often have that kind of stuff, in smaller places maybe a little less, but larger cities have nice amount of stuff to use and/or loan.
    - cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
      Marry or adopt me, would you? ;D Finish passport is good as a Singaporean one. I have a Prusa Mk3S+ with MMU, head improvement, and Bear kit. Also have maybe 40 rolls of filament from glow in the dark, UV reactive, and more or less every color and an Octoprint with cameras and a power shutoff. The only problem is my electronics lab is 60 Hz equipment. ]:

bobse 3y ago

[flagged]

thinkio 3y ago

I went to one in Birmingham a couple of times but it was boring and the people who used it were tedious and condescending. Not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't that.

eddiezane 3y ago

denhac is alive and well! We had our 15th anniversary party earlier this month and recently crossed 350 members. We're entirely volunteer run with no paid employees. I currently serve as vice-chair of the board. I joined right before COVID and my focus has been helping get policies and processes in place to continue to help us scale. We've seen pretty rapid growth post COVID and are seeing ~10 new members a month. Happy to answer any questions (when I wake up). Be sure to stop and say hi If you're ever in Denver, CO! https://denhac.org/ https://denhac.org/

karmicthreat 3y ago

They kind of came to be when the Bush financial meltdown happend. Unemployment was getting high in the late 00's. People were trying to develop new skills or build cottage industries. It feels like there is less of a hustle with all that now. Plus makerspaces were just difficult to make viable and really you are probably better off spending that time on any other endeavor. A group of us out here tried starting one in West Michigan and it sputtered along for a while. Financials and interest were never able to balance out. The Geek Group out here did a little "better" but the owners and volunteers there basically burned themselves out constantly. Then the founder got nailed for bitcoin crimes and that was the end.

sircastor 3y ago
I had a dream of running a Hackerspace, and no matter which way I crunched the numbers it just wasn't financially viable - not as a business.
mistrial9 3y ago
agree - plenty of young people see the darksides of constant tech engagement, and do not have the happy-garage experience to draw on, post-Internet

unit_circle 3y ago

Sector67 is still healthy! They have a smart, incredibly dedicated and frugal BDFL who got them through some lean times. I think in general it only works if there is a strong community / third place thing going. I always saw that as their biggest offering--a way to get out of the house without drinking or spending money. The making / hacking thing is just something to enjoy together.

btbuildem 3y ago

https://foulab.org/ https://foulab.org/ is alive and well!

astrange 3y ago

Like every other issue in American cities, poor land use means you can never afford to have anything except what was already there. I feel like I read a story about running one in the Bay that was just about having to deal with crustpunks and people having sex in the machine rooms. Although I think libraries have equipment like 3D printers these days.

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago
The obstacle to living in a remote area is being in the radius of major medical and groceries. I'm looking for a 3000+ sq ft single-story house and workshop on cheap land without natural hazards within 15-20 minutes of somewhere with a Trader Joe's.

aendruk 3y ago

Same question for LUGs.

__turbobrew__ 3y ago
LUGs core reason for existence — sharing Linux and systems administration knowledge — is no longer relevant. You can learn mostly everything you need to get to journeyman level experience online and in books. Once you want to achieve master level proficiency you join special interest groups and go to conferences. The LUGs I have been to are mostly social groups running off the inertia of old members which were around back when LUGs were relevant, an inertia which is slowing down with the age of the members. I served on the board for a local LUG and there is still some interest from the community but not like back in the day when they could pull 100s of people in a meeting and IBM or Redhat would buy free pizza for everyone in the early 2000s.
graublau 3y ago
The distinction at between operating systems is in 2023 pretty negligible in practice. Most people work on some kind of UNIX on Windows/Mac/Linux. OS tinkering/distrohopping tends to be an anti-pattern, a waste of time/not task oriented in any way.
whatisprogress 3y ago
Linux has become a standardized tool that is pretty simple to use. Linux used to be cumbersome with a high barrier to enter, now it is common and simple to use. Some of Linux's incredible innovations have been replicated by competitors. There are now lots of classes about Linux. Windows feature have also become more competitive with Linux features. You don't need to dual boot a PC to use Linux. You don't need to freak out about the refresh rate of the monitor, or build a custom knoppix instance for a kiosk machine, with cramfs and unionfs manually compiled into the kernel. (windows didn't have an easy to install kiosk built into the OS) Instead of ext2, or ext3 (vs fat32) you can now use NTFS. The Linux kernel was way more stable compared to XP. Starting with Vista, when the graphics driver crashed, the OS just reloaded the driver instead of BSOD. The supported hardware for windows has also increased dramatically. (ARM processors, embedded, etc.) At the same time that Windows was making inroads, Java, Apple, and Android have made significant inroads in their own ways. Overall, linux has become more user friendly (reducing the learning curve); training has become common, and multiple companies have become more competitive with Linux. This has reduced the demand for less structured training of LUGs.

mdasen 3y ago

Real Estate. So many quirky things are viable when there's cheaper rent, cheap buying opportunities, or underutilized space. If I could buy space for $150/sq ft, I might have some extra cash, like the idea of investing in real estate, and like the idea of having a cool community hackerspace. If it's going to cost me $1,000/sq ft, I'm barely going to be able to afford the space I want to live in. If a group of us can rent at cheap prices we're saving money on our housing and paying for a shared second space doesn't cost that much. Over the past 15 years or so, property prices have soared in so many cities. It really makes it hard to afford space for quirky things. There are certainly plenty of examples of ones that still exist and enough determination and you can still make things happen, but I think the rising cost of real estate is putting a damper on things like this.

mistrial9 3y ago
SF Bay Area checking in
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
getwiththeprog 3y ago
Community spaces are always on the move. So I don't think it's rent so much as the core members not keeping up with the inevitable need to move on. One I used to attend now gets space from a University http://hackerspace-adelaide.org.au/ http://hackerspace-adelaide.org.au/ There are lots of community spaces if people can find and network with them. But it takes work and dedication. Money is nearly always a second. The first hack group I fell in with (2600) met in a restaurant, and it worked and evolved into other groups including a hackerspace.
rapjr9 3y ago
So now that commercial real estate is being underutilized due to work from home does that mean the hackerspaces and artist collectives will return due to cheap real estate prices?
- ja27 3y ago

tetsuhamu 3y ago

They're still around. If you can't find the kind you're looking for, you can make one!

sircastor 3y ago

Aside from community (which is incredible important), Hackerspaces are a method of tool-sharing. In the last decade, many of the popular tools that used to live exclusively at a Hackerspace can be now be found in schools, libraries, and homes: 3D Printers, lasercutters, electronics toolkits, etc. And 3 years of pandemic isolation meant that people weren't able to show up anyway. One of my favorite spaces (though distant from where I live) - Metrix Create:Space - shut down down in 2018 in part because people didn't have as much of a reason to show up [1] [1] https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/08/tech-junkies-and-robot-tinkerers-lose-capitol-hill-haven-as-metrix-createspace-closes-doors/ https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2018/08/tech-junkies-and-...

clemailacct1 3y ago
Metrix!!! I used to live across the street from them and would go there often. Capitol Hill in Seattle is outrageously expensive.

mdtrooper 3y ago

And the hacklabs? In Madrid (Spain), now there is one alive.

dotnet00 3y ago

At my university, they already had the hackerspace locked down under all sorts of training sessions that needed to be scheduled and attended to be allowed access, then when covid came around they started by canceling all trainings, then eventually shut the space down entirely citing covid. Now that things have reopened they simply never brought it back.

INTPenis 3y ago

Maybe you'll get as many answers as there are hackers here but from my own perspective it seems it went the same way as all other communities. Internal strife, odd personalities, personal differences tore them apart slowly. It's not all bad. In my city it seems the hacker spaces organized by individuals were replaced by maker spaces funded and organized by the city. At least two that I know of, that are now basically free co-working spaces with 3D printers, meeting rooms, free wifi and such. One is run by the agency that ran the ccTLD back in the early 2000s, called Goto10 in Malmö and Stockholm. Very nice space to work at. The other is run by the city of Malmö called Stapeln and is in a basement. Besides those I know of at least two hacker spaces run by individuals that were still going last I checked. The pandemic hit them pretty hard of course.

gotts 3y ago
City funded(subsidized?) maker spaces is such a great idea
- samtho 3y ago
  It can get messy, especially because the very thing the city can offer (real estate) ends up being a political pawn. With no provision in the city’s charter to protect it, anything the city provides is going to be quick to the chopping block. The better way for a city to help is let the local library system manage the relationship or itself be the steward of the space.
  - morkalork 3y ago
    This is what my municipality does. There's a maker space run out of the main library with 3d printers, CNCs, laser cutters etc. Just need a library card and to pay some usage fees for materials to access it.
    - samtho 3y ago
      I honestly think a library is the best place for a general public makerspace for 90% of cases. That last 10% encompasses famous ones in specific cities like Noisebridge in SF or c-base in Berlin (all of which can only exist in that city’s culture scene) and also smaller, niche spaces such as Curious Forge, DIY or die (sadly defunct), etc. My local library system offers a limited “makerspace” program[0] that does some of this stuff within the library, but I think something that should be more integrated is their Library of Things[1] program which allows patrons to take home all sorts of tools and equipment that are just not used very often. I think more library systems should be granted the freedom and funding by their governing bodies to create a makerspace. Footnote: The other option I didn’t address was to have schools/universities maintain them, but those are always reserved for student and faculty. [0]: https://www.saclibrary.org/Education/Tech-Creation/Makerspaces https://www.saclibrary.org/Education/Tech-Creation/Makerspac... [1]: https://www.saclibrary.org/Books-Media/Specialty-Checkouts/Library-of-Things https://www.saclibrary.org/Books-Media/Specialty-Checkouts/L...

rlayton2 3y ago

Ballarat Hackerspace member checking in here. Hackerspaces require ongoing work and support. They aren't great businesses, but are great community spaces. To that end, you need an ongoing commitment of people to provide their time, resources, and effort. We are extremely lucky in Ballarat that we have such a group of committed members, as well as very generous sponsorship. We've paid that back through ongoing community involvement and releasing many free resources, but we are lucky to be in that position.

sen 3y ago
Another member checking in. Australia in general seems to have decent Hackerspaces in all the major cities, sometimes multiple, as well as good growing support from the Library network with their own makerspaces (including regular workshops for 3D printing etc).

nshkr 3y ago

Helped start a space long ago. It struggled to stay afloat and eventually was subsumed by the local uni. Now, my dream of a modern hs is limited by lack of funds and..space.

cvccvroomvroom 3y ago

Fads come and go. Too many people just wanted to create an elitism to lord over others or consume a movement than do anything productive, creative, and interesting as few did. I left for good when I discovered they promised to give to charity and gave nothing. Cheap, privileged, selfish, clueless, trash people.

samtho 3y ago
This is a very disparaging view and I’m sorry you fell victim to what sounds like grifters and con artists. This broad characterization is not fair to the hackerspaces that continue to this day, however.

__turbobrew__ 3y ago

A large local hackerspace in my city simply went broke over covid. Real estate and operating costs got more expensive and the business model couldn’t keep up. Unfortunately just piling a bit of cash between your friends can no longer get you a dingy commercial space to hang out.

drusepth 3y ago

I ran a small one in Missouri and have a few friends that ran ones here and there over the years. The two big reasons I and my friends don't run them anymore: rent costs and COVID.

samtho 3y ago

I was involved in makerspaces for a while. While I have not given up on them, I will admit that I have become thoroughly disillusioned with the idea. Real estate is expensive and a makerspace should be near public transport (which will likely be closer to the city center) but should be able to to facilitate some parking and/or transfer of large items to/from a vehicle. Cheap real estate does come in varieties that support the above. Most makerspaces carelessly target people to pay membership and nothing else. This creates a membership base that primarily goes to the space for their projects and goes home. This kind of member will drop the membership the moment they realize they can just buy the one or two machines they need and keep it at home (see techshop). This becomes a treadmill very quickly. Makerspaces need to focus on building a community of people who have the tools at home and choose to work there because is a great place to collaborate, but the problem here is that those people don’t have a ton of disposable income (or at least reliably recurring income) to spend on a membership. Leadership needs to balance the financial sustainability motive with the community sustainability one. A makerspace staring up needs: * to be a nonprofit * good value for rent * one to two years of runway in the bank * founding members who can work from the makerspace * a set of tools that are more difficult to have at home * night events that happen several times per week Basically, you need a lot of money, patience, and City buy-in helps a lot. Municipalities should be lining up to give money to people who want to manage theses sorts of community spaces, they are innovation and educational centers that can create an absurd amount of value for the relatively small investment. Usually it’s difficult to fill a community space with smart, competent people who actually want to help instead of grifters, sales people, and those who lack curiosity. The best experiences feel like an eternal September, and the bad ones just feel like accelerated enshitification. How do you attract people that want to spend their time being part of a community and dissuade those who are looking to only consume resources? I think a lot of spaces fail because they rely too much on paying members who never become part of the community and will drop the expensive subscription when it becomes convenient for them to do so. My vision for a makerspace is one where anyone can use it for free, you can become a member for some money, and those we want to stick around, we pay a small amount to stay. Using tools that are relatively safe should be mostly self certification. Tools that’s cause injuries or are expensive should require training or you should just send a job in (CNC mill). The actual real estate needs to be held by a trust and should be available to the makerspace as long as they are active.

mcint 3y ago

I spent Saturday, Sunday, and part of Friday tabling at Maker Faire for Hacker/Maker-spaces[1] and for Noisebridge[2]. With some other folks who tabled all of last weekend too. There are many! Also, more importantly, other institutions have taken up ideas from them and offer tools and services to address the same needs. Libraries and colleges in many communities host makerspace tools, tool libraries The maker movement has taken off, Etsy, home crafting, and sharing and selling projects at all varient of levels of polish, Finding like-minded individuals, for all manner of interests, is possible through meetups. I suppose, they've unbundled. I would say: look closer, they're maybe more present than ever, but in parts, and adapted in ways that best complement the psychological demographics of the places they serve. [1]: https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces [2]: https://noisebridge.net/ https://noisebridge.net/

deleted 3y ago

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matthewfelgate 3y ago

Anyone in Surrey, UK, we have just moved our MakerSpace to the Farnham/Aldershot border and it is very active: https://www.shmakerspace.org/ https://www.shmakerspace.org/

solarkraft 3y ago

What do you mean what happened? "Most are gone"? Do we live in different realities or just different places? Every major European city I visit has its own, or multiple, nice hackerspaces. Often smaller cities as well. Most/many of them are coming out of the pandemic more enthusiastically than before.

iancmceachern 3y ago
In the US most are gone
q3k 3y ago
Yeah, I was very confused by this post. Just the city I live in (Munich) has at least three community-oriented hackerspaces/makerspaces, and a bunch more 'open workshops' and commercial spots. Here's a list of _just_ Chaos Computer Club chapters around Germany: https://www.ccc.de/de/club/erfas https://www.ccc.de/de/club/erfas

iancmceachern 3y ago

It's like most things, real estate. Most hackerspaces I've been a part of couldn't or barely could afford their rent. Memberships were already too expensive, and they were constantly just getting squeezed between membership revenue and hard costs. Ultimately it doesn't add up. I think a lot of what used to happen at makerspaces has transitioned to libraries. Lots of libraries have 3d printers, et. Now, are free, and don't have the problem with affording space.

StopTheWorld 3y ago
From my knowledge of and participation in hacker spaces - I would say this is it. My understanding is hackerspaces like the L0pht were not paying exorbitant real estate prices, and had a core of founders making decent enough money to pay for the place. On the other hand, some hacker spaces start out very ambitiously with a large space in the center of an expensive city, without as much of dedicated, close, core team to sustain it, and those did less well. Also - when you have a small core team and expenses are too high, it causes friction and stress in the core team, and people want to participate less.
- rickydroll 3y ago
  other examples of a successful maker spaces are Springfield Telescope Makers in VT and Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston. Both specialize in telescope making and observing. Both clubs have a pool of people will to teach, a core of people maintaining and developing observatories and the clubhouse, and best of all, cheap real estate. Now if we could just get that Harry Potter light putter-outer when it is clear.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    Those are both very cool, but I would argue they aren't maker spaces. They seem like telescope making clubs.
    - rickydroll 3y ago

shadoxx 3y ago

Hive13 in Cincinnati seems to be flourishing in all regards! The core membership and leadership has always taken the organization seriously, and that attitude has helped them curate and sustain membership for over a decade now. I just checked their financials (the entire org is open), and it seems like the formula they have continues to sustain their bank account and membership numbers. I think that in general, hackerspaces haven't really gone anywhere. Like most organizations, sometimes they fail due to no fault of their own, or leadership decides to pivot to a more sustainable model - as some have mentioned here a more "WeWork" model. The hackerspaces/makerspaces are still there. You just have to look! https://hive13.org/ https://hive13.org/

CapstanRoller 3y ago

The same reason you no longer see artist spaces or other hubs of creative activity: real estate prices. Cheap commercial real estate is really hard to find. It's no longer viable to get a little warehouse on the edge of town and turn it into something cool.

rendx 3y ago

It seems like most people have given up on the idea of community, sharing, and collective action, and prefer to take pills or other substances against the resulting depression/anxiety/loneliness. Many comments here confirm this attitude, where what they see in spaces is reduced to "shared access to tools". Nobody wants to put in the effort just to have the majority be leeches.

Kalium 3y ago
Speaking only for myself, it's very hard to find people who treat community, sharing, and collective action as things to engage with regularly rather than as a way to get access to tools for cheap. It can be exceptionally stressful and anxiety-inducing to manage shared resources under those conditions. It should not be a surprise that some people prefer to not deal with the idea of hackerspace-as-community and seek their community elsewhere.
ShamelessC 3y ago
> It seems like most people have given up on the idea of community, sharing, and collective action, and prefer to take pills or other substances against the resulting depression/anxiety/loneliness. Oh, didn’t realize I was watching Fox & Friends.

RecycledEle 3y ago

They cost money. Humans are only so charitable. At some point the cost of fixing what is broken in a hacker space is contrasted against a car repair (or something) and the hacker space looses. This is compounded by the fact that the people who can responsibly use a hacker space usually own the tools or can get them cheap. Those who really want the hacker space have no clue that their incorrect use of the tool will destroy it. I am amazed that any publicly available hacker spaces survived the first week. I ran a hacker space in a school at my last employer. They never had a clue how much time and money went into the hacker space. When I left they asked if I wanted the stuff. They could not understand that two weeks after I left it was all broken, and had no value.

clausecker 3y ago

In Germany, they are alive and well with new hackerspaces being founded frequently. There was a pretty big slog due to the Corona restrictions, but it's slowly all coming back.

mkmk3 3y ago
Netherlands too, even in my smaller city, I know of one that has a pretty serious space thanks to some grants. But as others said, libraries can also fulfill the same function. I went to Zwolle recently and saw that they even seem to have a regular volunteer repair cafe. Thought that was super cool

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons The most sustainable models I've seen have these features: - Access to the physical space is free for non-members only during restricted time periods - A small monthly membership fee is required to access the space during other hours - Mandatory training is required for any complex/expensive equipment (laser cutters, 3d printers, welding equipment)

j0hnyl 3y ago

They are expensive to run and don't make any money.

rickcarlino 3y ago

We’re doing just fine here in the Midwest. Come visit us if you’re in the Chicago suburbs. https://www.Fox.build https://www.Fox.build

nrfulton 3y ago

All of the hackerspaces I've been to in the past 15 years are still around: St. Louis: https://archreactor.org/ https://archreactor.org/ Pittsburgh: https://hackpgh.org/ https://hackpgh.org/ Boston (albeit bummed they left their Somverville location): https://www.artisansasylum.com/ https://www.artisansasylum.com/ Many undergraduate-focused higher ed institutions have copied the makerspace/hackerspace model, primarily as an amenity for students. These are, in some cases, clopen to the public (sic). Public libraries have also copied the model. Reviewing the data, AFAICT: 1. The hackerspace-as-business model largely didn't work. 2. The community-run 501(c)3 model remains viable in mid-sized cities. 3. Organizations like hacker spaces have a really hard time of it in larger cities, mostly because of rent. 4. In places that are too rural or too expensive to support hackerspaces, other institutions often provide partial solutions which are not hackerspaces per se but offer similar amenities. Given that the primary barrier seems to be real estate, I am honestly mildly surprised that major donor hasn't tried to seed a legacy by copying the Carnegie Library formula but for hackerspaces. Seems like a much better legacy-building project than adding an extra half bajillion to a university endowment or starting yet another charter school experiment.

samtho 3y ago

Most traditional hackerspaces either went defunct or pivoted more towards coworking. The allure is pretty obvious: way higher margins. No tools to maintain, no giant safety concerns, just need tables, chairs, and vending. Also, people (or rather companies) who are willing to pay for coworking usually have more resources than “makers” who do not have the equipment or space at home to house projects. Tech shop tried this coworking model on a makerspace, and we known how it turned out. While it had some internal problems (from what I’m aware), it was never going to be sustainable because, at the prices they were charging, those who could afford it could usually afford some sort of desktop version of what they used tech shop for, except for maybe the water jet and plasma cutters. It was a self service machine shop that required you to invest your time in training to be able to even utilize, and no real community experience to speak of. It became a lot of people doing professional work, a few hours of machine time each per week, and they would go home. But all this is to say that a makerspace (nor a coworking space for that matter) is a hackerspace automatically, that titled is earned. The point at which a shared space like this becomes a hackerspace is the point where it becomes “cool”, where the community has reached critical mass, events and meetups can happen periodically, and it becomes a hub for the community. Most hackerspaces that went under recently will have claimed it was because the pandemic and lockdowns, but those events were merely the catalyst to their demise. A lot of people in this thread posit that the community is nice or at least important, I disagree. The hackerspace is the community. Hackerspaces that could not keep up with rapid community attrition during the pandemic post-lockdown were left them resource-constrained, unable to keep up with financial commitments. Most in this position chose to close. The community (more specifically the community members’ network) provides the stability as nearly all opportunities, grants, donations, and other contributions originate from people who built or are active participants in the community. An actively shrinking community effectively lobotomizes the hackerspace, leaving nothing more than an empty shell. Coworking spaces are for those who want to play office (WeWork, HackerDojo) Makerspaces are glorified tool shares (TechShop) A true hackerspace is a community space for those who are curious, creative, and passionate about doing things just because they think it’s interesting or cool.

Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago

The one in my town shifted focus from hackerspace to Antifa-adjacent sex club. The core founders who put in all the work to keep the space going either got squeezed out, got jobs and social obligations, or straight up died.

reaperman 3y ago
Is it still ostensibly a hackerspace or did the sign on the door change?
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - reaperman 3y ago
    > What, you're looking to join an Antifa-adjacent sex club? Please re-read the HN commenting guidelines. This is not appropriate. ———————- Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Eschew flamebait.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
      The same can be said for a snarky “please reread…” instead of directly addressing the comments that you take issue with. And is not the strongest interpretation a friendly tongue-in-cheek rather than a cross-examining demand for you to justify your follow-up question? I know some communities like to use the /s convention, but under that principle it seems redundant to me.

ValentineC 3y ago

I'm involved in the Singapore hackerspace. I think our main problem was that once we had a comfortable core base of members a few years ago, we stopped recruiting more because some of us were afraid that bad people would join as members and none of us would have good enough reasons to kick them out. When the pandemic hit, some of our members moved on with their lives — they moved back overseas, got married, bought their own places, etc. That caused our membership revenue to take quite a hit. We made the mistake of moving during the pandemic because we thought that we could save on rent, but the new place turned out to be highly unpopular among those that didn't speak up (it was bigger and cheaper, but there were more flights of stairs to climb). More people left. Newcomers tend to have a very transactional view of the space. Some people and groups continue to exploit the space because it's "cheap". A bunch seem to be quite happy to pay their membership dues and leave a mess after they're done, because some of the rooms don't get used very much, and enough time passes in between so we don't really know who we need to give behavioural feedback to. We've had people use the space as a hostel because they "tend to work late at night", and an "open source" group thinking that they could share access credentials among their own members because they paid slightly more than a usual membership subscription for one single month (we don't have a group membership tier). Not enough people want to take long-term ownership over the space now — many think that a hackerspace director is also the space manager, and the person that's always around to fix things up and clean up messes. Creating a culture where members are ideally empowered to take charge of the environment is difficult. I guess the overarching problem is that it's hard to get an active community going again without critical mass, and expect a bunch of newcomers to contribute significant amounts of ownership and money towards maintaining the space.

ogou 3y ago

I've been a paid member of 3 hacker spaces and a couple of niche creative communities over 20 years or so. There was a time when people were actually interested in experimenting, tinkering, and holding workshops. I think that has been replaced by hustle culture. I saw a lot of shops turn into laser cutter and C & C focussed fabrication shops. People were using the equipment to run under the table sign shops and Etsy production lines. They would book the equipment for 6-8 hour blocks and pay a premium. Indie users could never get a slot and learners were even more frustrated. There was rarely a density of users in there at the same time because everything was booked. The actual community just faded away. The infrastructure of shared resource communities got exploited by people who are purely motivated by money. Another challenge is governance. Managing a volunteer organisation can be tricky, especially if a few get paid for various things. Passionate people burn out and leave. That leaves a management vacuum that is easily exploited by people with an agenda. I watched one shop get completely taken over by political issues and the original mission was left behind for identity focus. It was a real bummer. The only ones that seem to survive have a strong professional management core and strict monetary oversight.

koromak 3y ago

William Osman and Allen Pan commented on it in a recent-ish podcast, Allen used to run a space. Basically, the politics of the situation is impossible. Maintaining a space like that costs an incredible amount of money and time. You'd hope that the community could pitch in together, but you always end up with a single person being the primary patron, spending their own time and money, while others abuse the space and the machines for themselves. The only spaces that seem to have survived are ones that gets large grants from some institution like a university or local government, and therefore can be run like a business, with leadership and staffing.

_spduchamp 3y ago

We got married, had kids, and a pandemic. Though under utilization was a long running problem before all that. As someone who spent many years as a volunteer at a couple spaces, there were a lot of lonely nights of nobody showing up. Getting adults off the couch and out for an evening of nerding out with free access to laser cutters, 3D printers, and well equipped electronics workstations is more challenging than one would imagine.

dangerface 3y ago

Covid

ja27 3y ago

Mine (Tampa Hackerspace) is alive and reasonably well. COVID was a big drag but we clamped down on expenses and had built up a nest egg in case of emergencies so the financial hit didn't do us in. It really wiped out a lot of the social aspects of the community and we're still struggling to get those back. Rent hurts but we were lucky to lock in a long-term contract with a fixed annual percentage increase. It's still by far our biggest expense. My opinion and experience is that a makerspace / hackerspace can only succeed with at least one person that's nearly 100% dedicated to running it, mostly without pay. The founder(s) probably have 5-7 years before they totally burn out so unless they've found and built up some others that are just as dedicated, it's hard to sustain a space.