Maker's Movement

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What do you guys think of this? Perhaps a glimmer of hope for an economic future that isn't won by global raiders?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brit-mori ... 01977.html
http://makezine.com/2013/06/03/why-the- ... e-to-stay/

Hobby stores exist, and people can sell their goods on ebay, so without the 3D printer, then it does not seem like anything new ?

It's the internet, not the 3D printer that makes it new.

The internet has slowly turned into the world's biggest flea market and also the world's biggest repository of how-to information. People are finding DIY instructions for literally everything they could conceive of making and finding a market for what they make- not limited to ebay and etsy.

In one sense it's as old as civilization. It recalls a time when everything was handmade and public markets were the only way that people bought and sold goods. That time seemed lost forever but the internet brought it back and it is growing and growing. Like techsteppergener8tion says, a glimmer of hope for an economic future that isn't won by global raiders.

It will never grow to rival corporations. But it does give an alternative.

Don't forget the ease of access to tools. It's a lot easier to manufacture clothing at home when you can pick up a cheap sewing machine and run it off mains power, rather than having to choose between hand sewing or working in a factory where they can afford the machines. Same with other tools - desktop CNC machines, for example.

A lot of it has to do with the drastic reduction in capital outlay required, as well as the access to a market.

I remember back in college marketing classes the concepts of the 'short tail' and 'long tail' markets came up often. The big box stores have to optimize floor space and regardless of what would be ideal that financial model keeps them only offering the short tail. One of the most notable places where the 'long-tail' became available was Amazon.com which could hold it's shelves in virtual space and, as long as someone could hack waiting for something to be shipped, they could get pretty much anything they wanted that was available so long as the vendors had signed up to be on Amazon's registry.

I might be a little more optimistic than to just say it's a glimmer. I'm thinking it might be something closer to a 'start', a bargaining chip. I know that Walmart has two really bad habits - first lowering prices to where the mom and pop shops in the area have to close or take grave financial hits, before raising them again. The other really nasty habit is having a broad array of workers who need welfare checks to supplement the difference to have a place to live, and in that sense Walmart is enriching itself on the tax-payer's dime.

I think for people who don't like the big-box behavior this may be a way for them to vote with their dollar and strike some kind of paranoia into such companies to realize that they have stakeholders who can indeed cause them an upset if they irritate the general public enough. Whether or not an internet-led maker's movement will lead to non-for-profit branded toilet paper, dish soap, clothing, and a big walk away from Wallstreet capital has a lot to do with the elements in question, large merchandise corporations and the capital market that funds them, continues to behave. The worse those two elements behave the more likely it is that you may have a whole other replacement economy spring up where nothing is really 'too big to fail' and anything that otherwise would have been may get financially bled out by thousands of paper-cuts if it walks too far away from stakeholder (not just shareholder) approval.

If, on a community level, we make our own technologies with opernsource blueprints, such as cnc machines and 3d printers, then the ownership of the means of production can indeed be more decentralized, which I think is a good thing. It will take a lot of cooperation though. I suggest implementing more cooperative business models, like those at Isthmus Inc. or Mondragon Corporation. It could ensure more economic security and safeguard against outsourcing to sweatshop economies.

Most importantly, I see this as a shift in thinking. Where we often think that we need to depend on some big company (or more to the point, someone else who is smarther and has a lot more money than us) to manufacture things, people are coming to realize that they are perfectly capable of doing all this their selves if the right investments in time and personal education are made. We don't need some big, titanic enterprize to create jobs for us. We can do it ourselves.

The crux of what a major corporation functionally does is make the HR decisions to get bright people with competencies (which they'd have either with or without said organization), create a think-tank for a product or service by grouping those people together with experts across other integral disciplines, and provides these people the means to do what they want to and the ability to do it at a competitive cost. In many cases the third point is the only major obstacle - ie. the pooling of PP&E, R&D funding, marketing/advertising funding, and accounting. That last leg might very well be brought together by online shops - think cafepress.com just many levels deeper.

Clearly the more in-depth professional services won't be changed all that much albeit lawyers might be dealing with a different balance of patents and tortes. I also really doubt that automotive start-ups can run wild just because integratability is a problem and large part of what customers care about on big ticket items, particularly that they'd need for transportation, is how serviceable it is and how much service/repair would cost or how long their vehicle would be out of use. Clearly you can't get a medical checkup, an operation, or get crowns done across the internet or by an amateur and advanced chemical applications and pharmacy would still be very competency and clearance-driven.

When you really think about it though, if this grabbed a large part of the retail sector from clothing and furniture to toiletries, we'd have capitalism operating at its most granular. Clearly wouldn't be the end of corporations (nor might that really be desirable in many sectors) but it could possibly spell the beginning of the end of corporat-ism aping capitalism.