17 Apr
2012
17 Apr
'12
8:30 a.m.
I'm not exactly sure where the animosity comes
from, because I think
that the arduino has done a great service to the community. At least
in terms of driving down prices on all boards of this nature.
That's not entirely good; look at the peecee hardware quality race to
the bottom when clones started forcing cost-cutting everywhere. To be
sure, there was a lot of headroom to start with (both here and with
peecees). But once that headroom is gone, all that's left is to cut
quality.
While they aren't likely to admit this, a lot of
the old fogies here
specifically don't like the accessibility and ease of use. Projects
that used to require a specific set of hard-won and war-won battle
skills/medals to build and create now no longer do. So the barriers
to entry to have been removed, and they're pissed. The elite club
they worked hard to join with a large learning curve is now handing
out free memberships. Boo hoo.
There's probably some of that. But this, too, is not unmixed; the flip
side of removing barriers to entry is...removing barriers to entry.
You not only are making it easier for newbies to join the hobby, you
are also making it easier for...lamers? People who have no real
interest in the hobby but want credit for being 1337 h4x0rz, to whom an
Arduino is not an entry into a fascinating world but a cheap way to
sleaze credit for something they don't really deserve credit for.
The bottom line re:arduino is that anything that
expands the
community by enabling people to build things that they want to build
is a win-win for me. Who cares if they don't want to solder? Who
cares if they don't want to understand digital logic? Who cares if
they aren't seeking true enlightenment? These people aren't even
necessarily hobbyists -- they are people who want to solve a problem.
Why care about the way they go about solving it?
Because I've seen what's happened to other worlds when such people
joined it. Electronics (I especially notice computer electronics, but
other kinds too). The net. Software (having a harder time there,
fortunately). Cars. Pretty much anything even vaguely complicated,
and even some things that aren't - it's taken me years to find a
good-quality manual tin opener.
Commoditize something and it becomes hard to find people who care about
it (either as users or vendors) any longer. Sometimes they're forced
out of business; sometimes they're just drowned out - it's a lot easier
to find four serious computer stores when they're the only computer
stores than it is to find the four serious computer stores amid four
hundred cheap-crap computer stores.
Not that I consider it totally bleak, mind you. Your arguments do have
force. I just don't think the picture is as one-sided as you make it
sound.
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