alt Hacker NewsActually, do things ever get easier to tinker with as technology matures?
Is it easier to build or repair a radio now than it was when they were first sold? A computer? A car? A washing machine? A vacuum cleaner?
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Yes, before the enshittification kicks in.
3D printers are mostly still repairable and far more reliable and usable than a few years ago when the majority of the hobby wasn’t making stuff, it was tuning the printer to work reliably. Bambu and California may be signalling that the enshittification inflection point is near.
Not quite the same level, but home/hobby electronics with tiny microcontrollers is more accessible than ever before thanks to the availability of cheap ESP8266/32 clones.
And there are some obvious individual counter-examples - Framework computers, or repairable blenders[0]… but you’ve got to pay a premium for the privilege.
But broadly you’re totally right - in the modern world, by the time something becomes a mainstream product aimed at general consumers, there’s a profit to be made and it’s likely on a downwards path.
But this is about building radios, which is easier (probably?) now. You can drag and drop an FM radio in pure software (well, with a USB dongle). Or if you insist on hardware, use free tools and cheap PCB services to prototype your radio, grab the parts from Digikey and follow a Youtube tutorial to solder it all together.