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Something that this brings up is the idea that we are going to "bring manufacturing back" to the USA. I don't think we will do that, and I certainly don't think

Something that this brings up is the idea that we are going to "bring manufacturing back" to the USA. I don't think we will do that, and I certainly don't think this is a sign that we will do that. Bringing chip fabs back is good. It is a strategic move that ensures we have control over chip security for critical devices. But it does not follow that bringing chip fabs back means that all manufacturing is coming back. My local hacker space is struggling to keep its doors open. All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. The small independent hardware stores are closing down too. People who actually want to build things are having a harder and harder time getting it done. Everything is owned by private equity firms who raise the price so high that people not already making a profit are getting squeezed out, which removes space for learning, prototyping, and risk taking. Compare all this to Shenzhen where you can get everything you need fabricated in a small area. It is important to keep in mind that Shenzhen was built relatively quickly, so perhaps we could do that here. But will we? I admit I only know the basics of the creation of Shenzhen but it sounds like strong political will to create it was an important part. Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? I honestly don't think we do. I am concerned that our political system is so overrun with corruption, infighting, finger pointing, and empty gestures meant to get likes on Twitter that the work needed to actually make manufacturing happen here would never get done.

xbmcuser 3y ago
I personally feel their banning of chip sales to China is going to help China as so far chinese foundries were not able to compete so were not investing people did not see any big opportunity but now with huge addressable market given to the capitalists of China. They might get a lot further than with just Chinese government support.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
The only way this changes is through a war, in which case domestic production will become a primary concern above all others. But the consequences aren’t worth the benefits, peace and global trade is by far the best outcome for everyone.
- yonisto 3y ago
  If only peace was ever lasting...
  - genman 3y ago
    The peace lasts as long as you are willing to engage in war.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      The US has been at war for decades.
      - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        These were 'interventions'. When you can bomb somebody and but there is no credible thread that your own population can be bombed back then it's not really a war. Your population doesn't feel the 'heat' and will not accept any inconveniences of ramping back domestic production
        NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        That makes WWI an intervention. Not saying you're wrong.
        pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        for the US WWI was indeed just an intervention, an unpopular one, at least initially, too.
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        Down voters fact checked me turns out Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia, sorry guys.
- pm90 3y ago
  The threat of War is often good enough. Also we may not have another hot war, but it seems increasingly likely that we will see another cold war in the near future.
shiroiuma 3y ago
>My local hacker space is struggling to keep its doors open. All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. The small independent hardware stores are closing down too. I think a lot of this is just because the rent is too damn high. How can a local shop expect to compete against online sellers who don't have nearly as much overhead? Here in Japan, we don't have this problem so much: there are tons of little mom-n-pop shops all over the place. But many factors like rent and zoning help make it viable for small businesses to stay afloat, that wouldn't be able to in America. Here, a business can exist in a 20 m^2 space on the 5th floor of some building that has no parking at all; that's basically illegal in America. I imagine some things like that are similar in Shenzhen. >Bringing chip fabs back is good. It sounds like a good idea, but throwing money at the problem isn't going to magically make a skilled workforce appear that can operate these fabs.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Oh yeah, parking minimums are a disaster for many reasons, as is the endless acquisition of property by private equity firms. I currently need about 2000 square feet of industrial space (plasma cutting, welding, work benches, and a small office) and its very hard to find such a small spot! Literally the space in Oakland I previously would have used, American Steel, was bought by a private equity firm, all the small tenants were kicked out, and now they rent 20,000 square feet at a time to big venture capital funded companies: https://48hills.org/2022/04/american-steel-burning-man-artist-community-displaced-redevelopment-gentrification/ https://48hills.org/2022/04/american-steel-burning-man-artis... EDIT: Fun fact, I did approach the building, got the manager's number from someone, and called her. When I said I needed 2000 square feet she actually laughed, said "we typically rent out 20,000 square feet or more", said she would "try to find me something" and then never called me back.
  - infthi 3y ago
    if there is a demand for 200sqm space - why wont someone rent 2000 sqm and subrent?
    - 3y ago
mkoubaa 3y ago
I have a heterodox opinion about this. We are a handful of tweaks to intellectual property law away from onshoring manufacturing
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  I am very curious what your opinions are in this regard. I have strong opinions about IP restrictions, which is that I think we need a managed scale down of said restrictions. Still even if your view is different I would like to hear it.
  - mkoubaa 3y ago
    We are aligned on the direction of scale down. I think my tweaks would be: (1) lowering the lifetime for non pharma patents (2) allowing forking from an earlier release of an extended patent (3) give tax incentives for companies that will not enforce royalties for domestic manufacturers (4) companies with small enough revenue cannot be sued for IP infringement I could easily be talked out of these I think but right now this is what I would support
- euroderf 3y ago
  I would like to hear ideas here too. Sometimes just a "tweak" or two is all it takes.
- hindsightbias 3y ago
  Is this before or after invading Netherlands for ASML's IP?
- edgyquant 3y ago
  We don’t even need to change IP. High tariffs is what built the US’ industrial base to begin with and removing them is what allowed it to dwindle. We just need to go back to high tariffs and low taxes and let the economy sort out everything else.
  - mkoubaa 3y ago
DeathArrow 3y ago
> I admit I only know the basics of the creation of Shenzhen but it sounds like strong political will to create it was an important part. I think that in the beginning manufacturing at both large and small scale was incredibly cheap in Schenzen. So were the components and hardware. In US people want large margins so things can't be cheap enough to have another Schenzen. Also, Schenzen has a culture of sharing while US has a culture of secrecy, patents and intellectual property.
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  Strong agreement on the culture of sharing leading to a more productive system. I think our culture of secrecy seriously kneecaps out ability to operate. This 2009 article from Bunnie Huang about the "Shanzai" culture of sharing in Shenzhen is a big inspiration for my thinking on problems with intellectual property restrictions: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284
derriz 3y ago
Manufacturing never left the US - at $2.5T of output (2021) it's easily the highest it's ever been - almost 40% higher than 10 years previous[1]. What has changed is the proportion of working people employed in manufacturing - which has dropped. But this is inevitable unless you want to roll back decades of technical advancement and investment. And this is happening in all countries and is an inevitable consequence of manufacturing improvements. Nor is the phenomena novel - it happened about 100 years ago in agriculture which had previously been the biggest employer. What has also dropped is its share of US GDP - but this is because other sectors - e.g. IT - have boomed - not because manufacturing has been in decline. [1] https://nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2022-united-states-manufacturing-facts https://nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2022-united-states-...
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  You say all of this, but where in the US can I go get a PCB made, a housing injection molded, rubber seals custom cut, and have a contract manufacturer assemble everything for a modest price? If you order a small batch of custom PCBs with a five day turnaround from a fab house in the USA it costs over $500. If you order it from China they cost $15. And it's not just due to cheaper labor. They have better higher volume equipment. Edit: I’d love to find a non-state source but China claims $5T per year in manufacturing output for 2021. I wonder where the US would be if we had focused on manufacturing growth instead of offshoring production. http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2022-03/01/content_78077749.htm http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2022-03/01/content_78...
  - konschubert 3y ago
    And better processes.
  - quailfarmer 3y ago
    You can get a pretty high quality PCB built at Bay Area Circuits in Fremont, and assembled at Sierra in Sunnyvale. The speed is marginally slower than JLC, the cost is marginally higher and quality marginally lower than Compeq. But, you can drive there, and be on a first-name basis with your supplier. Given the extreme efficiency of international shipping logistics, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any given metro area to have competitive world class manufacturing of every type. The cost of real estate alone makes it hard to compete.
andrepd 3y ago
>Everything is owned by private equity firms who raise the price so high that people not already making a profit are getting squeezed out, which removes space for learning, prototyping, and risk taking. But people have assured me that $current_mode_of_capitalism is the best, nay, the only way to stimulate innovation and creativity and growth? /s
- bell-cot 3y ago
  Back in the day, the courtiers and advisers and admirers and wanna-be's of a well-off king would be telling you that monarchy was the best, nay the only way to achieve $Stuff_That_Sounds_Good. In hindsight, they obviously were indulging in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
- bluGill 3y ago
  Capitalism is a strawman invented by Marx to attack. People are far more complex than his models.
bob1029 3y ago
What is actually stopping you from opening your own version of Fry's or Radio Shack right now? Is it actually the politics boogeyman, or is it more about economics, culture and doing the hard things? I used to shop at these places religiously. At no point did these businesses appear to be "booming". I worked at Circuit City right up until the end. Margin on selling finished computers to customers was already pretty flimsy. I don't think selling boxes of components is moving us toward a less-challenging business model. What about the electronics shops that are still around? Don't you have Microcenter in California, or is this another thing that Texas is winning at?
- TaylorAlexander 3y ago
  > What is actually stopping you from opening your own version of Fry's or Radio Shack right now? Aside from the fact that this is not my area of expertise (I am a robotics engineer), I assume the same forces that made things difficult for those companies would making things difficult for me. And as I said earlier I think the practice of private equity firms buying property is raising prices across the board and making things more difficult for everyone. That’s not a bogey man that’s a specific claim. Whatever else you say about the perceived viability of those companies, they’re valuable for rapidly designing new products. That’s why Shenzhen and Tokyo have famous electronics markets.
  - graphe 3y ago
    Realistically expect a digital version or a VR version instead of manufacturing coming back. If you have the money to, support this project or one like it. It's a WIP. https://wokwi.com/ https://wokwi.com/ you can request features if you donate. As for me I don't see anything wrong with buying from mouser. Radio shack and fry's were always out of the desirable or exotic parts.
    - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
      I’m a robotics engineer. I build real, physical robots. Specifically right now farming robots. There’s no digital or VR version of a robot that’s going to grow food you can eat. Buying from mail order is okay for off the shelf parts but what about custom parts like PCBs and machined parts? And what do you do when you get your mouser order and realize you forgot something important? Having options nearby just means more speed. And that’s what I’m talking about. We’re settling for slower speed than is possible and I don’t like that. They don’t settle for slow in Shenzhen I don’t see why we should.
atoav 3y ago
> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? Gorgive my cynicism, but I wonder if there is any strong political will to do anything good and proper at all? The way I see it since the privatization/neoliberal wave politicians in most nations realized that there is more money for them in it if instead of one state owned entity you give things to 10 private ones, 8 of which you have ties to, 2 of which you will "work" at after your political career. Sure, I could imagine a national state doing what is needed, just not under the current political climate when it comes to economics. There are still many people out there who believe these things need to be solved by guiding the invisible hand of the market, when everywhere you look it has made things shittier, except the bank account of the few lucky ones. I am not saying people shouldn't be allowed to earn money. What I say that anything that isn't about extracting money from the system needs another form of incentive structure.
zo1 3y ago
It's the endless chase of "GDP" points: Somehow, through various constraints and processes it's "better" overall for me and 500 other people to buy a hand tool (drill, angle-grinder, saw, etc), than it is for a dozen of such tools to be stocked at a shared-center like a maker/hacker space for us all to use that odd time we need it in the year. 500 tools sold means X% more truck delivery trips, more than Y% of hours worked by dock loaders, Z$ of rented space, A$ of margin added by a supplier, B$ of supplier warehouse space rented, etc etc etc. We've settled on a local-maxima that adds a lot of imaginary "GDP" points while the value is sucked out away from all of the rest of us.
- rcxdude 3y ago
  There's no local incentive that directly pushes for "more GDP". The dichotomy you present is much more about for mundane tradeoffs, like the cost of renting and maintaining such a collection of tools compared to the cost if buying them, and the preference of people towards personal ownership compared to a communal resource.
- bluGill 3y ago
  You should get to know your neighbors. Borrowing tools as needed is common when you know people. Most tools you should buy - or get a neighbor to buy. There is a lot of friction going to a maker space for some tool. It is much easier to grab your own drill when you need one than to go elsewhere to get it.
- some_random 3y ago
  I'm very confused as to what mechanism would be used to compel the closing of hackerspaces on these grounds? Are you proposing that landlords are increasing rent specifically because they want to boost GDP?
- inglor_cz 3y ago
  What you are describing is basically a coordination problem, not a chase for GDP points. Renting stuff as a business only makes sense if you can ask for reasonably high rent to cover your costs. Very expensive stuff (professional cameras, cars, bridal dresses) meets this criterion. A drill that costs 200 USD doesn't. How much can you ask for a day of rent of such a drill? 10 USD? That covers the cost of keeping the shop open for a few minutes at most. Borrowing/lending stuff between friends makes a lot more sense, but you are limited to a fairly small set of people and you must be socially not-inept not to irk them with unreasonable requests; also, it happens that many people need the same type of object at nearly the same time (a day off with nice weather is great for gardening, so everyone is gardening; whoops, snow has fallen, everyone needs their shovels in the morning).
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mschuster91 3y ago
> My local hacker space is struggling to keep its doors open. All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. The small independent hardware stores are closing down too. Same here in Germany. Conrad, the nation's only electronic parts retail chain, closed down its physical stores during Covid... and even a big city such as Munich does not have an electronic parts store. You gotta drive out to Bürklin in Unterhaching now, and they're geared towards professionals, not amateurs.
- oytis 3y ago
  I've seen the last years of Conrad, and my impression is that it was made obsolete by online retail. Like yes, if its Friday afternoon, and you need parts urgently for your weekend project, then you can go there. But otherwise you get better choice for less money online. I still have a bottle of flux I've got from them in my closet. The funny thing about it is it leaves conductive traces unless cleaned. Not the best choice for the only flux on the shelf on an electronic DIY shop.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Like yes, if its Friday afternoon, and you need parts urgently for your weekend project, then you can go there. But otherwise you get better choice for less money online. Yep, agreed. But online has its own problems... Amazon is full of shit with zero supply chain control, including safety-relevant stuff like fuses [1], or stuff secretly dropshipped from China or grey-imported from the UK or shipped from Poland with way more than a day of lead time. eBay is even worse. Bürklin is good but they do take their while to ship because they don't have an insane volume deal with DHL. And all of online is useless if you have stuff like weird connectors you need to find a matching mate or want to make sure <component> physically fits, or want to find a component that fits. No problem at Conrad, a huge and annoying hassle with online. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
    - oytis 3y ago
      Amazon has become a more expensive version of Alibaba, I order from there only when I need stuff real quick - and they have a generous return policy if things don't work out. But for components you also have more established suppliers like Digikey, Avnet, Arrow etc.
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crispyambulance 3y ago
> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? Definitely not. The CHIPS act is just BS. The only thing it does is funnel money into already profitable companies that employ global supply chains in the hope that it will compel them to "create jobs in the US". Tragically, we've got deeper problems than not enough jobs. Public schooling in the USA has become largely dysfunctional. Major population centers have shocking, 3rd-world-or-worse literacy rates (like ~50%, not-kidding). You can't have illiterate folks in a chip fab. This is the kind of problem that requires a "1960's space race" approach, but it just isn't going to happen anymore.
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  The problem isn't so much that schooling sucks, the problem (if it is a problem) is that smart students are drawn to high margin top slot careers. Why work in a chip fab clean room for 10 hours a day when you can make 2x the pay to work from home on software projects? Or do financial analysis in a trendy office with a hybrid schedule? I can tell you that manufacturing offers -zero- work from home options. Which usually entails "We need you here this weekend" too. Even if you aren't a top shelf student, you can still get more comfy better paying advanced economy jobs.
  - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
    It's both. Schooling sucks so we don't have as many well educated people as we could and those who have good education make rational decisions and go into high paying careers, so not into manufacturing. And can you blame them? After all we are a capitalistic society, everyone just chooses what's best for them financially
kasey_junk 3y ago
I’m not sure I understand. Rent in Chinese cities is much more expensive (on a local economy basis) than in the US and Shenzen is a more expensive city. Its labor that’s cheap there not rent.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Shenzhen labor is cheap only compared to US labor but it's already more expensive than several European countries now. Seriously, manufacturing engineers in Shenzhen have higher wages than Ukraine and even Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. And yet most electronic prototyping and manufacturing happens in Schengen and not Eastern Europe. Why is that I wonder? /Rhetorical question
renewiltord 3y ago
In the end, it's just land use and bureaucracy, man.
iancmceachern 3y ago
A lot of what you note here is 5 years behind. Yes, local brick and mortar specialty shops have shuttered, but we still have Jameco, Digikey, McMaster, etc. The center of the design and industrial universe is the US, has been, will be. It's a resources thing, natural and human.
brightball 3y ago
I know there are makerspaces that exist to help people prototype and start a product business until they reach a good size for batch manufacturing. There’s one near me in South Carolina called Synergy Mill and I believe it’s an MIT Fab Lab?
vel0city 3y ago
> All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. Mouser Electronics is less than an hour away from me. Microcenter is an extremely short drive (I routinely get lunch around there) and has lots of hobby electronics stuff. The local hacker space is filled with people, full classes almost every day and people making things all the time. The university near me has a busy hackerspace as well for students. Meetups for software developers are routinely packed. I'm surrounded by chip fabs, high-value equipment manufacturing, board fabrication, and engineering firms every corner I turn.
vitiral 3y ago
My project civboot.org was spun out of similar concerns. I don't have the political power to change any of the issues you raised, but I can rebuild a simpler yet usable tech stack that could be the basis of a new educational program.
nyokodo 3y ago
> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? I honestly don't think we do. We are not and cannot recreate the Chinese manufacturing sector in the USA. Firstly the scale is all wrong, in most cases we're not going to produce for the entire globe, just our own needs and that of our friends. Second, what we are doing is being done in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. Not just the USA. Thirdly, this has been happening for years now, a lot longer than most have been aware due to the shale revolution making nat gas energy and byproducts dirt cheap. The pandemic supply shocks and the accelerating break down in globalization is just the latest motivator.

xbmcuser 3y ago

I personally feel their banning of chip sales to China is going to help China as so far chinese foundries were not able to compete so were not investing people did not see any big opportunity but now with huge addressable market given to the capitalists of China. They might get a lot further than with just Chinese government support.

fnordpiglet 3y ago

The only way this changes is through a war, in which case domestic production will become a primary concern above all others. But the consequences aren’t worth the benefits, peace and global trade is by far the best outcome for everyone.

yonisto 3y ago
If only peace was ever lasting...
- genman 3y ago
  The peace lasts as long as you are willing to engage in war.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    The US has been at war for decades.
    - pi-e-sigma 3y ago
      These were 'interventions'. When you can bomb somebody and but there is no credible thread that your own population can be bombed back then it's not really a war. Your population doesn't feel the 'heat' and will not accept any inconveniences of ramping back domestic production
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        That makes WWI an intervention. Not saying you're wrong.
        pi-e-sigma 3y ago
        for the US WWI was indeed just an intervention, an unpopular one, at least initially, too.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Down voters fact checked me turns out Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia, sorry guys.
pm90 3y ago
The threat of War is often good enough. Also we may not have another hot war, but it seems increasingly likely that we will see another cold war in the near future.

shiroiuma 3y ago

>My local hacker space is struggling to keep its doors open. All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. The small independent hardware stores are closing down too. I think a lot of this is just because the rent is too damn high. How can a local shop expect to compete against online sellers who don't have nearly as much overhead? Here in Japan, we don't have this problem so much: there are tons of little mom-n-pop shops all over the place. But many factors like rent and zoning help make it viable for small businesses to stay afloat, that wouldn't be able to in America. Here, a business can exist in a 20 m^2 space on the 5th floor of some building that has no parking at all; that's basically illegal in America. I imagine some things like that are similar in Shenzhen. >Bringing chip fabs back is good. It sounds like a good idea, but throwing money at the problem isn't going to magically make a skilled workforce appear that can operate these fabs.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Oh yeah, parking minimums are a disaster for many reasons, as is the endless acquisition of property by private equity firms. I currently need about 2000 square feet of industrial space (plasma cutting, welding, work benches, and a small office) and its very hard to find such a small spot! Literally the space in Oakland I previously would have used, American Steel, was bought by a private equity firm, all the small tenants were kicked out, and now they rent 20,000 square feet at a time to big venture capital funded companies: https://48hills.org/2022/04/american-steel-burning-man-artist-community-displaced-redevelopment-gentrification/ https://48hills.org/2022/04/american-steel-burning-man-artis... EDIT: Fun fact, I did approach the building, got the manager's number from someone, and called her. When I said I needed 2000 square feet she actually laughed, said "we typically rent out 20,000 square feet or more", said she would "try to find me something" and then never called me back.
- infthi 3y ago
  if there is a demand for 200sqm space - why wont someone rent 2000 sqm and subrent?
  - 3y ago

mkoubaa 3y ago

I have a heterodox opinion about this. We are a handful of tweaks to intellectual property law away from onshoring manufacturing

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
I am very curious what your opinions are in this regard. I have strong opinions about IP restrictions, which is that I think we need a managed scale down of said restrictions. Still even if your view is different I would like to hear it.
- mkoubaa 3y ago
  We are aligned on the direction of scale down. I think my tweaks would be: (1) lowering the lifetime for non pharma patents (2) allowing forking from an earlier release of an extended patent (3) give tax incentives for companies that will not enforce royalties for domestic manufacturers (4) companies with small enough revenue cannot be sued for IP infringement I could easily be talked out of these I think but right now this is what I would support
euroderf 3y ago
I would like to hear ideas here too. Sometimes just a "tweak" or two is all it takes.
hindsightbias 3y ago
Is this before or after invading Netherlands for ASML's IP?
edgyquant 3y ago
We don’t even need to change IP. High tariffs is what built the US’ industrial base to begin with and removing them is what allowed it to dwindle. We just need to go back to high tariffs and low taxes and let the economy sort out everything else.
- mkoubaa 3y ago

DeathArrow 3y ago

> I admit I only know the basics of the creation of Shenzhen but it sounds like strong political will to create it was an important part. I think that in the beginning manufacturing at both large and small scale was incredibly cheap in Schenzen. So were the components and hardware. In US people want large margins so things can't be cheap enough to have another Schenzen. Also, Schenzen has a culture of sharing while US has a culture of secrecy, patents and intellectual property.

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
Strong agreement on the culture of sharing leading to a more productive system. I think our culture of secrecy seriously kneecaps out ability to operate. This 2009 article from Bunnie Huang about the "Shanzai" culture of sharing in Shenzhen is a big inspiration for my thinking on problems with intellectual property restrictions: https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

derriz 3y ago

Manufacturing never left the US - at $2.5T of output (2021) it's easily the highest it's ever been - almost 40% higher than 10 years previous[1]. What has changed is the proportion of working people employed in manufacturing - which has dropped. But this is inevitable unless you want to roll back decades of technical advancement and investment. And this is happening in all countries and is an inevitable consequence of manufacturing improvements. Nor is the phenomena novel - it happened about 100 years ago in agriculture which had previously been the biggest employer. What has also dropped is its share of US GDP - but this is because other sectors - e.g. IT - have boomed - not because manufacturing has been in decline. [1] https://nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2022-united-states-manufacturing-facts https://nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2022-united-states-...

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
You say all of this, but where in the US can I go get a PCB made, a housing injection molded, rubber seals custom cut, and have a contract manufacturer assemble everything for a modest price? If you order a small batch of custom PCBs with a five day turnaround from a fab house in the USA it costs over $500. If you order it from China they cost $15. And it's not just due to cheaper labor. They have better higher volume equipment. Edit: I’d love to find a non-state source but China claims $5T per year in manufacturing output for 2021. I wonder where the US would be if we had focused on manufacturing growth instead of offshoring production. http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2022-03/01/content_78077749.htm http://english.scio.gov.cn/m/pressroom/2022-03/01/content_78...
- konschubert 3y ago
  And better processes.
- quailfarmer 3y ago
  You can get a pretty high quality PCB built at Bay Area Circuits in Fremont, and assembled at Sierra in Sunnyvale. The speed is marginally slower than JLC, the cost is marginally higher and quality marginally lower than Compeq. But, you can drive there, and be on a first-name basis with your supplier. Given the extreme efficiency of international shipping logistics, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect any given metro area to have competitive world class manufacturing of every type. The cost of real estate alone makes it hard to compete.

andrepd 3y ago

>Everything is owned by private equity firms who raise the price so high that people not already making a profit are getting squeezed out, which removes space for learning, prototyping, and risk taking. But people have assured me that $current_mode_of_capitalism is the best, nay, the only way to stimulate innovation and creativity and growth? /s

bell-cot 3y ago
Back in the day, the courtiers and advisers and admirers and wanna-be's of a well-off king would be telling you that monarchy was the best, nay the only way to achieve $Stuff_That_Sounds_Good. In hindsight, they obviously were indulging in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
bluGill 3y ago
Capitalism is a strawman invented by Marx to attack. People are far more complex than his models.

bob1029 3y ago

What is actually stopping you from opening your own version of Fry's or Radio Shack right now? Is it actually the politics boogeyman, or is it more about economics, culture and doing the hard things? I used to shop at these places religiously. At no point did these businesses appear to be "booming". I worked at Circuit City right up until the end. Margin on selling finished computers to customers was already pretty flimsy. I don't think selling boxes of components is moving us toward a less-challenging business model. What about the electronics shops that are still around? Don't you have Microcenter in California, or is this another thing that Texas is winning at?

TaylorAlexander 3y ago
> What is actually stopping you from opening your own version of Fry's or Radio Shack right now? Aside from the fact that this is not my area of expertise (I am a robotics engineer), I assume the same forces that made things difficult for those companies would making things difficult for me. And as I said earlier I think the practice of private equity firms buying property is raising prices across the board and making things more difficult for everyone. That’s not a bogey man that’s a specific claim. Whatever else you say about the perceived viability of those companies, they’re valuable for rapidly designing new products. That’s why Shenzhen and Tokyo have famous electronics markets.
- graphe 3y ago
  Realistically expect a digital version or a VR version instead of manufacturing coming back. If you have the money to, support this project or one like it. It's a WIP. https://wokwi.com/ https://wokwi.com/ you can request features if you donate. As for me I don't see anything wrong with buying from mouser. Radio shack and fry's were always out of the desirable or exotic parts.
  - TaylorAlexander 3y ago
    I’m a robotics engineer. I build real, physical robots. Specifically right now farming robots. There’s no digital or VR version of a robot that’s going to grow food you can eat. Buying from mail order is okay for off the shelf parts but what about custom parts like PCBs and machined parts? And what do you do when you get your mouser order and realize you forgot something important? Having options nearby just means more speed. And that’s what I’m talking about. We’re settling for slower speed than is possible and I don’t like that. They don’t settle for slow in Shenzhen I don’t see why we should.

atoav 3y ago

> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? Gorgive my cynicism, but I wonder if there is any strong political will to do anything good and proper at all? The way I see it since the privatization/neoliberal wave politicians in most nations realized that there is more money for them in it if instead of one state owned entity you give things to 10 private ones, 8 of which you have ties to, 2 of which you will "work" at after your political career. Sure, I could imagine a national state doing what is needed, just not under the current political climate when it comes to economics. There are still many people out there who believe these things need to be solved by guiding the invisible hand of the market, when everywhere you look it has made things shittier, except the bank account of the few lucky ones. I am not saying people shouldn't be allowed to earn money. What I say that anything that isn't about extracting money from the system needs another form of incentive structure.

zo1 3y ago

It's the endless chase of "GDP" points: Somehow, through various constraints and processes it's "better" overall for me and 500 other people to buy a hand tool (drill, angle-grinder, saw, etc), than it is for a dozen of such tools to be stocked at a shared-center like a maker/hacker space for us all to use that odd time we need it in the year. 500 tools sold means X% more truck delivery trips, more than Y% of hours worked by dock loaders, Z$ of rented space, A$ of margin added by a supplier, B$ of supplier warehouse space rented, etc etc etc. We've settled on a local-maxima that adds a lot of imaginary "GDP" points while the value is sucked out away from all of the rest of us.

rcxdude 3y ago
There's no local incentive that directly pushes for "more GDP". The dichotomy you present is much more about for mundane tradeoffs, like the cost of renting and maintaining such a collection of tools compared to the cost if buying them, and the preference of people towards personal ownership compared to a communal resource.
bluGill 3y ago
You should get to know your neighbors. Borrowing tools as needed is common when you know people. Most tools you should buy - or get a neighbor to buy. There is a lot of friction going to a maker space for some tool. It is much easier to grab your own drill when you need one than to go elsewhere to get it.
some_random 3y ago
I'm very confused as to what mechanism would be used to compel the closing of hackerspaces on these grounds? Are you proposing that landlords are increasing rent specifically because they want to boost GDP?
inglor_cz 3y ago
What you are describing is basically a coordination problem, not a chase for GDP points. Renting stuff as a business only makes sense if you can ask for reasonably high rent to cover your costs. Very expensive stuff (professional cameras, cars, bridal dresses) meets this criterion. A drill that costs 200 USD doesn't. How much can you ask for a day of rent of such a drill? 10 USD? That covers the cost of keeping the shop open for a few minutes at most. Borrowing/lending stuff between friends makes a lot more sense, but you are limited to a fairly small set of people and you must be socially not-inept not to irk them with unreasonable requests; also, it happens that many people need the same type of object at nearly the same time (a day off with nice weather is great for gardening, so everyone is gardening; whoops, snow has fallen, everyone needs their shovels in the morning).

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mschuster91 3y ago

> My local hacker space is struggling to keep its doors open. All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. The small independent hardware stores are closing down too. Same here in Germany. Conrad, the nation's only electronic parts retail chain, closed down its physical stores during Covid... and even a big city such as Munich does not have an electronic parts store. You gotta drive out to Bürklin in Unterhaching now, and they're geared towards professionals, not amateurs.

oytis 3y ago
I've seen the last years of Conrad, and my impression is that it was made obsolete by online retail. Like yes, if its Friday afternoon, and you need parts urgently for your weekend project, then you can go there. But otherwise you get better choice for less money online. I still have a bottle of flux I've got from them in my closet. The funny thing about it is it leaves conductive traces unless cleaned. Not the best choice for the only flux on the shelf on an electronic DIY shop.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Like yes, if its Friday afternoon, and you need parts urgently for your weekend project, then you can go there. But otherwise you get better choice for less money online. Yep, agreed. But online has its own problems... Amazon is full of shit with zero supply chain control, including safety-relevant stuff like fuses [1], or stuff secretly dropshipped from China or grey-imported from the UK or shipped from Poland with way more than a day of lead time. eBay is even worse. Bürklin is good but they do take their while to ship because they don't have an insane volume deal with DHL. And all of online is useless if you have stuff like weird connectors you need to find a matching mate or want to make sure <component> physically fits, or want to find a component that fits. No problem at Conrad, a huge and annoying hassle with online. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
  - oytis 3y ago
    Amazon has become a more expensive version of Alibaba, I order from there only when I need stuff real quick - and they have a generous return policy if things don't work out. But for components you also have more established suppliers like Digikey, Avnet, Arrow etc.

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crispyambulance 3y ago

> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? Definitely not. The CHIPS act is just BS. The only thing it does is funnel money into already profitable companies that employ global supply chains in the hope that it will compel them to "create jobs in the US". Tragically, we've got deeper problems than not enough jobs. Public schooling in the USA has become largely dysfunctional. Major population centers have shocking, 3rd-world-or-worse literacy rates (like ~50%, not-kidding). You can't have illiterate folks in a chip fab. This is the kind of problem that requires a "1960's space race" approach, but it just isn't going to happen anymore.

Workaccount2 3y ago
The problem isn't so much that schooling sucks, the problem (if it is a problem) is that smart students are drawn to high margin top slot careers. Why work in a chip fab clean room for 10 hours a day when you can make 2x the pay to work from home on software projects? Or do financial analysis in a trendy office with a hybrid schedule? I can tell you that manufacturing offers -zero- work from home options. Which usually entails "We need you here this weekend" too. Even if you aren't a top shelf student, you can still get more comfy better paying advanced economy jobs.
- pi-e-sigma 3y ago
  It's both. Schooling sucks so we don't have as many well educated people as we could and those who have good education make rational decisions and go into high paying careers, so not into manufacturing. And can you blame them? After all we are a capitalistic society, everyone just chooses what's best for them financially

kasey_junk 3y ago

I’m not sure I understand. Rent in Chinese cities is much more expensive (on a local economy basis) than in the US and Shenzen is a more expensive city. Its labor that’s cheap there not rent.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Shenzhen labor is cheap only compared to US labor but it's already more expensive than several European countries now. Seriously, manufacturing engineers in Shenzhen have higher wages than Ukraine and even Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. And yet most electronic prototyping and manufacturing happens in Schengen and not Eastern Europe. Why is that I wonder? /Rhetorical question

renewiltord 3y ago

In the end, it's just land use and bureaucracy, man.

iancmceachern 3y ago

A lot of what you note here is 5 years behind. Yes, local brick and mortar specialty shops have shuttered, but we still have Jameco, Digikey, McMaster, etc. The center of the design and industrial universe is the US, has been, will be. It's a resources thing, natural and human.

brightball 3y ago

I know there are makerspaces that exist to help people prototype and start a product business until they reach a good size for batch manufacturing. There’s one near me in South Carolina called Synergy Mill and I believe it’s an MIT Fab Lab?

vel0city 3y ago

> All my local electronics shops (in the Bay Area!) have closed down. Mouser Electronics is less than an hour away from me. Microcenter is an extremely short drive (I routinely get lunch around there) and has lots of hobby electronics stuff. The local hacker space is filled with people, full classes almost every day and people making things all the time. The university near me has a busy hackerspace as well for students. Meetups for software developers are routinely packed. I'm surrounded by chip fabs, high-value equipment manufacturing, board fabrication, and engineering firms every corner I turn.

vitiral 3y ago

My project civboot.org was spun out of similar concerns. I don't have the political power to change any of the issues you raised, but I can rebuild a simpler yet usable tech stack that could be the basis of a new educational program.

nyokodo 3y ago

> Do we have strong political will to create something like that here? I honestly don't think we do. We are not and cannot recreate the Chinese manufacturing sector in the USA. Firstly the scale is all wrong, in most cases we're not going to produce for the entire globe, just our own needs and that of our friends. Second, what we are doing is being done in Mexico, the USA, and Canada. Not just the USA. Thirdly, this has been happening for years now, a lot longer than most have been aware due to the shale revolution making nat gas energy and byproducts dirt cheap. The pandemic supply shocks and the accelerating break down in globalization is just the latest motivator.