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Unfortunately this is almost the least profitable market segment imaginable and isn't going to be addressed well by capitalism.

I don't mean this in a "capitalist bad" way, it's mostly great but there are certain innovations and technologies that don't fit well with a need to get the most return possible on capital invested. There's a "dead space" of techs that would benefit everyone, need some capital to create - but don't allow a lot of value to be captured.

A bit like how we see more VC excitement about "vat grown meat" (a centralised industrial model that exacerbates supply chain dependency and further alienates people from their food - but is perfect for capturing value) vs working on "super potatoes" or algae-based systems that would be low-dependency and could scale down to individuals.

Orthodoxy is that government is supposed to help with this stuff but they have their own incentives (some of them a result of industry capture) which rarely align with decentralisation, degrowth or reduced dependency. For example recent battles to get laws passed to even allow you to repair your own stuff.




It did address it fairly well. They were able to buy cheap, off-the-shelf components and build this with relatively little work.




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