[grues-dinner]

The problem is the GVCS is already bumping against the OSHW curse even for the smallest items: replicating one unit costs real money in materials and processing and if you fuck up, a new version costs real money too. But in the last 15 years, the niche is shrinking - you can get a decent new doohickey from China whereas previously you would have to hope for an ex-first-world or ex-Soviet cast-off.

A 500 million glassworks or foundry is just that times a million (literally). And technology has never stopped - no one would spend a hundreds of millions to build a new plant on a 20-year old design.

[WJW]

Oh I totally agree. One reason open source software is so "easy" is that it costs virtually nothing to share something you made, or to take something someone else shared and build it yourself. The potential pool of hobby contributors drops off drastically even for $10 gadgets, let alone for anything 10k and up.