Remix clone Hacker News

What are the reasons for decline? Online commerce? Or shift in hacker culture?

RiverCrochet 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

- The first thing the great Internet consumed in the 90's (and earlier, really) was technical occupations and hobbies - people affiliated with those were likely amongst the first to spend a lot of time online and want to do things online like buy stuff.

- Anything small and where part numbers matter greatly is going to have advantages when sold and bought online. You'll be able to type in a part number and get a straight answer on cost and availability. This can also happen if a store has a good customer service representative but that stopped being a thing somewhere between 9/11 and the GFC of 2008 - also around the time Walmart had to raise it's starting wage to $10/hr. just to get people in the door.

- Less people are repairing electronics and less electronics are repairable. The way consumer electronics are built are different now than say in the 80's or 90's - components are often surface mount and often things are just a CPU/MCU+RAM+flash on a board with a bit of surrounding surface mount stuff.

- A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many. One thing Radio Shack did sell was media and all forms of converter cables for home electronics and there just isn't a great need for that anymore with how everyone interacts with media now. Desktop PCs are niche now, non-gamer non-business laptops are disposable. Many just use their ISP router for WiFi. Home assistant stuff had to take on a friendlier, non-hacker image to gain acceptance.

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musicale 4 days ago | parent [-]

> A lot of what used to be consumer electronics exists on everyone's smartphones. No more clock radios, walkmans, boomboxes, tape decks, VCRs, DVD/CD players, landline phones, etc. I would bet Bluetooth speakers have essentially replaced home stereos for many.

I still seem to use a lot of electronics: bluetooth and wired speakers, headphones and earphones, power strips and adapters, USB cables and gadgets, SSD enclosures, phone accessories, game systems, all sorts of computers, tablet/e-reader, monitors for computing/gaming/video, musical instruments and amplifiers, functional and decorative lighting, chargers for everything, networking/WiFi stuff, automatic cookers, etc. RadioShack and Fry's used to sell those things.

It's a shame that the maker/DIY electronics revival turned out to have limited appeal, because I'd like to visit a store that had Raspberry Pi and other microcontroller boards, components for real-world interfaces and robotics, 3D printers and supplies, etc.

In addition to the electronics components aisles at Fry's, I miss their PC component section. And their convenient return policy. I'm surprised that there aren't more shops for PC customization. I also wish there were a shop where you could put together your own custom mechanical keyboard, picking out switches, keycaps, etc.

	▲	hakfoo 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Mechanicalkeyboards.com actually has a storefront in Arizona. They host meetups for the local enthusiast community, and you can buy the various components over the counter.

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pixl97 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Expensive mall based rents in general and large amounts of company debt.

Which falls apart when you have competitive online shopping.

Which falls apart further when you buy a giant bag of what you need online cheaper.

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sokoloff 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Selling one transistor for $1.99 when Aliexpress will sell you 100 for $1.02 is a big part of it.