The answer to that question was the US before the 1970s when manufacturing was still onshored. So many joe shmoes literally started companies in this era taking some garage creation and manufacturing it at scale at a local plant.

Now that all takes place in China. With layers of middle men who collect arbitrage between you and the Chinese manufacturers they connect to you. With tariffs. Weeks of international shipping. Enough volume of orders to justify international shipping at all. Enough production capacity ordered to even be worth while making your thing versus larger orders from around the world all being made in china.