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 esta

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.