[sdiy] Re: making 2 or 3 dollars an hour on synth building?

[Aaron Lanterman]

On Dec 2, 2008, at 9:52 AM, rdrake wrote:

> and yr take would be even less if you compensated all the folks on  
> this list who helped you thruout the process.  no offense, but you  
> might want to let folks know in advance if you're asking for help on  
> a commercial endeavor, rather than sdiy...

How was this not SDIY? He Did It Himself. The fact that someone bought  
his work makes it no less SDIY. He wasn't e-mailing us his from  
cubicle at Behringer, and I'm not expecting to see the Ark mass  
produced by Alesis anytime soon.

Paul Schreiber, John Blacet, and Grant Richter all post questions and  
answers on this list, and they all sell professional products - but  
they are all cases of SDIY Done Good. People like Ian Fritz and  
Juergen Haible sell boards through various outfits (and probably can  
buy one cappuchino every sixth months on the profit they make). All  
these folks post a lot more answers than questions, typically, as  
expected given the vast depths of their knowledge, but from time to  
time over the years I'm sure they've benefited from answers given to  
questions they've posted. Some of these answers may even have found  
application in their professional products, but no one expect them to  
put a "this might find application in a manufactured product" in their  
e-mail when they ask questions.

Right now, Dan S. may be asking more questions than he answers, but  
five or ten years from now, the situation will be reversed. People  
like Dan are the Pauls, Johns, and Grants of the future. Everyone has  
to start somewhere.

And we've all benefited from the answers people have posted to Dan's  
questions - not just Dan. If Dan was writing Harry Bissell a private e- 
mail, and Harry wrote a private e-mail back, that's a different  
situation than a public list where everyone benefits from the  
discussion.

I know I post way more questions than I have answers to. I just try to  
contribute by asking interesting questions.

- Aaron