I like how it's posted to a twitter URL.

Lack of caps really grinds on you by the end.

Anyway not unexpected.

I hoped the article would be be a meta-discussion of "time" and perhaps relativity or some other phenomenon. Sigh, it's an investment thesis saying "This Time is Different" is a risky bet.

That sounds like an interesting article. You should write it.

Or have an LLM write it and then we can judge whether the OP is wrong about whether "this time is different".

A mix of perspectives in here that feel inter-related. The maker movement state-side leaned more "fun or artsy" while the real maker movement you could argue was thriving in China. Another darker way of looking at it is: if the maker movement was really believed to be a way to bring manufacturing back, it was effectively cargo-culting that by focusing only on a narrow set of building blocks. Maybe it's similar to building your own PC from parts at Fry's back at the day: that felt good... and you did feel you were really making something. But you were really doing final assembly and abstracting out the complexity of building those building blocks that went into it.

Anyway I think we are seeing a scenius phase -- it's just happening everywhere all at once on a world stage. And it's exciting. As with any moment in time there's a ton of experimentation and a small number of break-out hits. Also the pace of change means there's less staying power for a break-out hit than there used to be.

But the quick break-out hit phenomenon is particularly applicable for things that are more about the attention economy and less about the boring hidden things that traditionally have been where the economy's silent toil is really centered.

All of this makes me feel the author is too close to the creative end-consumer layer e.g. "make something flashy and cool whether it's a 3d-printer in a 5th avenue dept. store window, or a new app front end" but perhaps less focused on the full depth of things that really exist around them.

This really resonates with me in that a lot of NYC's "tech" circa 2013 was 3d printing oriented, much more so than in Silicon Valley. And I wondered why? but then it was a reflection that tech in NYC then was more about marketing, story telling, and less about the depth...

Obviously you had the west coast makers, you had the burners, so I don't mean to conflate all these differnet things. But the idea that Maker Faires were really about bringing manufacturing back... I don't know I think it was more about the counterculture, about having fun. I think that's coming back to tech right now as well in a sense. Even if it's also got dystopian overtones

Appreciate this re: maker movement perhaps being too aesthetically oriented and hence missing out on perhaps the real scenius

So it's driving global economic growth just not US if you choose to exclude imports. Got it. Headline should be focused on economics of infrastructure build out. As framed it's too broad

Maybe if you're being pedantic but let's assume they generate $1B to $3B in payments revenue on top of that non payments ARR. I don't see why you'd assume the former isn't likely to grow and so you might as well think of it as recurring. It's just low margin.

Still a rich multiple at 40-70x

Coinbase next?

And Cash App

I would not want to be working on Cloudflare's Vercel partner team about now.. talking about a diplomacy-forward role

Thank you for saying this. It reminds me of class tests where you always had to wonder if something was a trick question and you never really knew... it was always after the teacher. Which frankly is fine in open-ended questions where you can explain your rationale or how different interpretations would lead you to different paths but a terrible situation when it comes to multiple choice. I remember being very frustrated by those

That's a great point, you actually reminded me of when I used to live in this small city and they had a valet style car wash. It was not unheard of to head there walking with your keys and tell the guy running shop where you parked around the block then come back later to pick it up.

EDIT: I actually think this is very common in some smaller cities and outside of North America. I only ever seen a drive-by Car Wash after emigrating

You pay at the car wash where I live.

Are you referring to one that is more like a drive-thru where you literally pay while you're in line?

You drive up to the car wash, there's a little terminal with a screen and a card reader. You pick the program, pay for it and drive into the machine. Can't remember the last time I got out of my car when getting it washed.

Fair. I guess I'm remembering the old full service wash places where people would wash the inside as well. Maybe those barely exist anymore. I live in a city and don't have a car so my intuition is off. Not as far off as a model that has never walked, driven, or been to a car wash tho.