huh. so my circle of friends is a little different; Many of them could make garage door opener; heck, many of them could make a garage door opener that was far more secure than your average house lock. Of course, I live in a fairly urban area, and almost none of these people have an actual garage to open.
How much actual work gets done? that usually depends on the personal employment situation. Both, "do I have enough work" and "how hard is the boss pressuring me to work more" - from what I've seen it's more about how much free time is available than any calculation of how much they get paid per hour. (I mean, I usually do the "how much could I be making during this hour" calculation, but I'm a /lot/ more comfortable hiring people than most of my friends.)
If anything, I think the bias is too much towards 'I will do it myself' where I am, I've seen solder/heatshrink repairs on products that literally cost $5. I mean, done by fully-employed folks. I've got prime, I'll order you another.
Considering how many of these folks are introverts, I think there is a huge untapped market for someone to buy one of those self-storage places and add outlets. Especially if it was open 24/7? man, that would be really popular with my crowd. The problem with hackerspaces is that first, they are social (which is good for other things, but not for introvert work space) and second, that you generally have little to no storage space, and certainly can't leave your project on the workbench while you have a busy week at work.
On the subject of Grandpa fixing things, my favorite grandpa quote is "Always test a wire like this" (holds hand with palm inwards, two fingers out) "and never like this" (pretends to grab wire with both left and right hands outstretched)
How much actual work gets done? that usually depends on the personal employment situation. Both, "do I have enough work" and "how hard is the boss pressuring me to work more" - from what I've seen it's more about how much free time is available than any calculation of how much they get paid per hour. (I mean, I usually do the "how much could I be making during this hour" calculation, but I'm a /lot/ more comfortable hiring people than most of my friends.)
If anything, I think the bias is too much towards 'I will do it myself' where I am, I've seen solder/heatshrink repairs on products that literally cost $5. I mean, done by fully-employed folks. I've got prime, I'll order you another.
Considering how many of these folks are introverts, I think there is a huge untapped market for someone to buy one of those self-storage places and add outlets. Especially if it was open 24/7? man, that would be really popular with my crowd. The problem with hackerspaces is that first, they are social (which is good for other things, but not for introvert work space) and second, that you generally have little to no storage space, and certainly can't leave your project on the workbench while you have a busy week at work.
On the subject of Grandpa fixing things, my favorite grandpa quote is "Always test a wire like this" (holds hand with palm inwards, two fingers out) "and never like this" (pretends to grab wire with both left and right hands outstretched)