[TriLUG] Article on Radio Shack's Demise

[C TC via TriLUG]

"Radio Shack lost its way when it ditched its hobbyist customers"

Nice read. The title says it all.

I've missed the "real" shack for quite a long time now. Nothing will
replace the first time I went there. My Grandfather took me to get wiring
and a few other small parts to make my slot cars go faster. There was no
looking back after that!

In these last two decades; where we can to type "how to ..." into a search
bar, and some guy somewhere will walk you through a total build, or repair
of anything ... The Shack was never in the top search results. Not to
mention that the parts lists from said how-to's were mostly non-Radio Shack
links.

IMO: When they gave up on passing knowledge to customers, they immediately
lost their true fan base. I say this knowing how tough it is for a
storefront to keep up/compete with the amount of new information currently
at our fingertips.

However, you would have thought that the walls and parts bins would have
been restocked with Arduinos, RPi's, embedded hobby boards, and all things
related to the new forms of tinkering. Reestablishing itself as a DIY
headquarters. Such is the way of our new world economy. Evolve or die.
Tweet or get of the pot.

I need some 16AWG wire, shrink wrap, solder, and other small bits for a new
project. Looks like I'll get it from them, instead of spreading orders
across multiple on line vendors to save a few pennies. I always over buy,
suffering from "and two of these" disease. Besides, it will be fun trying
to get to the car without the parts cutting their way through that terribly
thin white and red bag one last time.

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 10:11 AM, via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org> wrote:

> I came across an article that I thought was interesting and thought I
> would pass it on:
>
> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21643461-radio-shack-lost-its-way-when-it-ditched-its-hobbyist-customers-making-it
>
> It discusses a lot of topics that have come across this mailing list over
> the last several months such as the Raspberry Pi and the evolution of
> hobbyist electronics.
>
> It also provides a trip down memory lane for middle age folks such as
> myself that got their first computer, a Commodore 64, back when their age
> was in the single digits, talking about the Altair, the Z80, and green
> screen monitors.
> --
> This message was sent to: Carl <c.crider at gmail.com>
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