[sdiy] Maplin folds

[Richie Burnett]

Another one here shocked to see Maplin go.  Last time I was in the local 
store they had loads of Arduino and Raspberry Pi stuff in there, along with 
table-top robots, quad-copters, and all the usual disco lights, speakers, 
amps, etc.  I was amazed to see that they still had a tiny little 
"Components" counter at the back of the store, but my jaw nearly hit the 
floor when I saw the prices for basic resistors, capacitors, LEDs, etc!!!  I 
think they wanted to charge me something like 5 quid for a plastic IDC tool 
(for fixing some telephone extension wiring,) that was clearly a 2 pence 
moulded plastic piece of Chinese crap.

-Richie,



-----Original Message----- 
From: Jay Vaughan
Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2018 8:07 PM
To: SDIY List
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Maplin folds

> In fairness to them, they tried to cater for a changing market, people no 
> longer build things these days, they are content with buying something. 
> Buying things has also gotten a lot cheaper so again, no real surprises, 
> but a shame none the less.
> Paula

It always bugs me that these part-shacks go out of business, but yet the 
Maker scene is expanding in leaps and bounds.  It seems to me that its just 
a matter of not having the right/savvy generation in charge of new product 
and market development in these dinosaurs.

Like, if Radioshack had just tuned into the 3D printer/hackaday/rPi thing a 
little sooner, it'd have had a pivot point to segue into the Maker scene, 
which - from my perspective - seems to be positively thriving: The kids are 
making stuff!  Perhaps the writing was on the wall already, what with all 
their over-leveraging on cheap crap from China and corporate finance 
dodginess, but .. maybe there's gonna be a brick-and-mortar retailer rise 
from all of this that caters to the demands of the maker scene.

Radio Shack used to be *the* doors-open hackerspace in many communities.  I 
know I learned a shit-ton of things in my youth by camping out in the local 
RS, booting up the demo TRS-80's, and coding away (same with Computerworld, 
anyone remember them?)  If they'd had a more community-/DIY/maker oriented 
open door policy, and actually .. I dunno .. hosted a few events on a 
regular basis, perhaps they'd have become a more viable force for the scene? 
One can dream ..


;
--
Jay Vaughan
ibisum at gmail.com





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