My local Radio Shack is closing at the end of the month. No idea where I'll go when I blow a capacitor in a poorly wired project on a Tuesday evening now.
I see value in brick and motar electronics shops, but I wonder if enough people do to make it profitable. My question is: is there a future in brick and motar electronics shops and is there anything we consumers could do to better support them?
No, there is no future in bricks and mortar hobby retail electronics. Well, not a big future. It will become a niche in places around universities for example where a concentration of EE students gather, maybe. The Rpi and Arduino has helped it stage a bit of a resurgence. Unfortunately there is an element of the "old guard" who insist on sneering at them.
Embracing everyone with even a tangential interest in electronics is one thing that could be done. It is up to the retailers themselves to entice consumers to their stores. If you artificially support them and give them less motivation to adapt to change rapidly then they'll inevitably fail regardless.
On the plus side the Internet has been a marvellous innovation for creating a wealth of easily accessible information. So the barrier to entry is nearly non-existent as far as data and ability to communicate with others. I knew no-one when I was a kid.
I think the only way we could really have easily accessable components is if we have some kind of hobbiest superstore that companies also benifit from.
One store that has:
-Arts & Craft Metal, Plastic and Wood / craft books
-Chemistry glassware and chemicals / chemistry books
-Electronics Components / Books
-Hackerspace built in? (Throw a corner in with a lathe, mill, 3d printer, reflow oven, chemistry bench, welder etc.)
-Operates a webshop
-Lectures / Sessions on various topics.
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