Over the years we’ve had the dubious honor of bidding farewell to numerous companies that held a special place in the hearts of hackers and makers. We’ve borne witness to the demise of Radio Shack, TechShop, and PrintrBot, and even shed a tear or two when Toys “R” Us shut their doors. But as much as it hurt to see those companies go, nothing quite compares to this. Today we’ve learned that Maker Media has ceased operations.
Between the first issue of Make magazine in 2005 and the inaugural Maker Faire a year later, Maker Media deftly cultured the public face of the “maker movement” for over a decade. They didn’t create maker culture, but there’s no question that they put a spotlight on this part of the larger tech world. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the shuttering of Maker Media could have far reaching consequences that we won’t fully understand for years.
While this news will surely come as a crushing blow to many in the community, Maker Media founder and CEO Dale Dougherty says they’re still trying to put the pieces together. “I started the magazine and I’m committed to keeping that going because it means something to a lot of people and means something to me.” At this point, Dale tells us that Maker Media is officially in a state of insolvency. This is an important distinction, and means that the company still has a chance to right the ship before being forced to declare outright bankruptcy.
In layman’s terms, the fate of Make magazine and Maker Faire is currently uncertain. The intent is to restructure the organization and rehire enough people to keep the brand alive, but it may take rethinking their business model entirely. While they aren’t looking to crowdsource the resurrection of Make, Dale said he believes the answer may ultimately come from the community’s willingness to financially support them, “my question is can we perhaps rely on the community to offer support for what we’re doing in ways we have not asked for in the past.” Ideas currently being discussed include the sort of annual membership and pledge drives used by public broadcasting.
It’s impossible to overstate the positive influence that Make has had on the public’s perception of DIY. It put on a global pedestal the sort of projects which otherwise might have never been seen outside the basement workshops or garages they were constructed in. Through their events and outreach programs, Make showed an entire generation of young people that building something just for the joy of building it was something to be proud of. Make proved that nerds could be cool in a way that had never been done before, and worryingly, may never be done again. Let’s take a look at that legacy.
Explosive Growth
When the first issue of Make hit newsstands nearly 15 years ago, Maker Media didn’t yet exist. At that point, the magazine was managed by a division of O’Reilly Media that Dale founded. Within the first year, Make became so popular that they decided to bring the “show and tell” concept of the magazine into the real world with the very first Maker Faire held at the San Mateo Fairgrounds in California.
From that point on, the Make brand seemed unstoppable. It spawned a whole line of books that drilled down into specific facets of the maker community, and after a few years, there was even a more artistically themed spin-off magazine called Craft. Many will remember there was even a short-lived Make: Television program that aired on PBS in 2009.
Maker Faire also saw astounding growth. Approximately 22,000 people attended the first Maker Faire in 2006, but by 2011, cumulative attendance to the primary events held in New York and California had skyrocketed to 175,000. The next year, “Mini Maker Faires” started sprouting up all over the United States to cater to those who couldn’t make it to the coastal events. All told, Maker Faire events were soon playing host to over a half million annual visitors.
It seemed the world couldn’t get enough Make content. Some argue that the meteoric rise of the DIY culture pre-2010 was due to a slumping economy: high unemployment and low disposable income meant people were more likely to build something for themselves or repair what they already owned rather than buying something new. Whatever the reason, Make was clearly on the forefront of something huge.
Creating A Brand for Makers
By 2013, the decision was made to spin the Make empire off into its own company, Maker Media, with Dale at the helm. The new company would not only oversee the magazine, books, and live events, but also developing new products and services as part of what was already being called the “Maker Movement. O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly believed that it was time for Make to grow beyond its enthusiast roots, and become the cornerstone of a whole new market: “A movement that began with enthusiasts has turned into an entrepreneurial revolution. As an independent company, Maker Media will be able to accelerate its growth and develop new services for the maker community.”
The new CEO of Maker Media also believed it was time to recognize the movement had grown beyond its humble beginnings. “While MAKE started out with geek hobbyists, the audience now includes families who look for fun, educational projects to do together, ” Dale said in a post to the Make website. “It also includes makers who are developing new products and services for other makers and other audiences. It includes professional engineers and industrial designers.”
Investors seemed to agree, with Maker Media securing $10M in two funding rounds between 2013 and 2015. That same year, with events now as far out as Cairo and Hong Kong, Maker Faire attendance broke 1.2 million. By any metric, Maker Media seemed well positioned to be the defacto leader of the DIY movement that was now become a worldwide phenomenon.
The High Water Mark
With that much momentum, and just four years after the last influx of funding from investors, how can it be that Maker Media is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy? With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that 2015 ended up being something of a peak for Maker Media: while cumulatively Maker Faire events in 2017 surpassed 1.5 million visitors, since that point there’s been a steady decline in attendance for the flagship events in New York and California. The company was forced into laying off some of their staff earlier in the year, and just last month, we reported on the possibility that the flagship Maker Faires might be coming to an end.
It’s difficult to nail down what went wrong, but part of it could simply be that the “Maker Movement” was content with remaining an underground niche. The glitz and glamor offered by Maker Media just wasn’t what they were after. In his announcement of Maker Media, Tim O’Reilly made a comment that today seems nothing less than prophetic: “The problem is that, as has often been said about AI as well, as soon as something crosses over into the consumer realm, it’s no longer seen as “makerish.”
In Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson reflects on the failure of 1960’s counter-culture to spread despite the incredible momentum it seemed to have at the time, saying: “with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark — that place where the wave finally broke, and rolled back.” This moment might be looked back on as the point where the wave broke for the Maker Movement, but we still have a chance to decide how far it will roll back.
[Main image source: Make magazine collection listing on Gumbtree]
I went to the Bay Area Maker Fair several times between 2012 and 2016. It was a lot of fun the first time, but the following three the content was all so similar to the first that it felt redundant, and I stopped going after that. I don’t know if that was true for the public at large, but anecdotally it was true for my friends. It was pretty much the same displays from local hobbyist clubs, the same crafts goods vendors with the same stuff as last year, and the latest 3d printer models for sale…
One question, if Make is shutting down, what would you recommend someone read? Do people have any recommendations? Magazine or website, please let me know.
I like
A) Hackaday
B) Instructables
C) Ben Krasnow’s aplied science channel
D) AVE’s channel
Any more suggestions to find a wide array of interesting tutorials and articles?
I also want to add udemy as well.
Youtube.
Github
Sparkfun
DIY websites
Books that can be located on Amazon (You don’t have to get the book there).
The library.
And you can always stop being a follower and make something yourself! That way, you don’t waste your time on things you don’t have, things that are not useful and do focus on making something for yourself.
It is really annoying to see people make things out of my price range or something too big for me to keep.
If you had let’s say a year’s worth of Make magazines and they were worth building, why is everyone complaining instead of being busy building?
If the projects were worth building then why aren’t people busy building them?
If the projects were not worth building then why are people complaining?
If the projects were not worth building then no one is spending money at the events making it profitable?
How many projects has everyone built making it worth having?
Its kind of like this. If you buy an LP record and there is only one or two songs you like, you aren’t getting your money’s worth. If you aren’t building the project, you aren’t necessarily getting your money’s worth.
If someone can answer these questions then maybe we will have an answer.
Unfortunately, it seems makerspaces closing is becoming the new thing.
The Geek Group closed its doors March 31, 2019.
GR Makers closed its doors August of 2018.
Even locally, a group of people wanted to build a children’s science museum; I attended a public meeting with the board present, and it went well… sent them several e-mails packed with ideas and such… never heard anything back, and nobody has done anything with the building. That was in early March this year.
Part of the problem is, it’s a niche market. Sure, someone might have an occasional use for an electronics lab where they can solder stuff for their Arduino, but beyond that occasional use, or the occasional customer for the computer lab or CNC shop, there’s not a lot of regular Joe draw.
The Geek Group upped the ante with the High Voltage lab (who doesn’t like explosions and lightning) and the occasional crazy demos and experimental work, but when I was out there for two years, during the average week, we maybe had 30-40 people through the doors (over the course of five days, not counting volunteers)… easily that many for the free Saturday tour… and that was about it.
GR Makers was created by a group of people who used to hang out at The Geek Group.
It seems to me that… unless the makerspace has a wide-enough appeal AND has more than a one-use type feel, it’s not going to make it. Add to that, the stuff makerspaces would solely be the owners of (3D printers, laser cutters, board mills, stuff like that) is common place enough that you can just buy or build one for the cost of membership at a makerspace.
I feel your pain.
All I can say is my experiences with hackerspaces in my major city have all been positive. I don’t want to plug for my cities Makerspace because I don’t feel it’s right here,
But I will say this:
Making things isnt a maket.
There is a market for making things, but there will always, always, ALWAYS be people who want to make stuff, and don’t have or can’t afford the tools to do so.
I wholeheartedly believe that every town should have a community garage and every larger town should have a hackerspace or whatever you want to call it.
There will always be a place 4 people who want to make things, and gathering over beer and powertools and sewing machines should be something that will never truly die.
People need to make things, at all levels, outside their daily grind. It drives so many. Its fundamental to people all over the world, every culture, to craft, to make.
To hell with calling it a national movement name like Nation of Makers. Enough with the pompus pomp and circumstance. If you know the soul of making, its that lone guy or girl in their garage, saying hold my beer, watch this. Which is all of us.
Find a community space, set up a non profit, and build a hackerspace. A community garage. Whatever you wanna call it. Make sure there’s beer- that gets people in the door and ideas going (kick out alcoholics though!)
Making isn’t O’Reilly, or Dale. Its all of us- and the will to teach others how to use their hands. Be it.
I do agree.
In my opinion, it would be great if there was a makerspace of some size in at least each state… maybe a couple or something depending on state size or something.
And, it doesn’t have to be huge, doesn’t have to have world-class engineers running each area of it… it just has to be accessible to everyone, has to have what’s needed/wanted in the area its in, and be affordable to the people in its area (if there isn’t a big draw for a half-million dollar laser lab, then there isn’t really a reason to have a laser lab)… and a huuuuuge thing is having the right people running it; it’s a good thing to have a good frontman for the place (the person in the videos), but aside from being the frontman you need a good overall manager to run things (the guy who makes the decisions about what gets done).
I wholeheartedly agree that all a makerspace truly has to be is a place (be it a garage, basement, livingroom, shed… heck, even a patio or a whole cheap office building) where geeks/nerds/seamstresses/whatevers can get together and do their thing. There’s no real rule what it HAS to be or what we HAVE to do there. It could be an occasional embroidery club that gets together in your wife’s sewing room or a bunch of guys rolling their own Tesla coils using drills and bench vises or it might be we just fix a few of the neighborhood’s computers in an afternoon.
That was what I was hoping the children’s science museum would do… be the museum for kids most of the time, but also have stuff for makers (electronics lab, 3D printers?, A/V lab?, HV lab?, stuff like that). I was thinking a membership system so the electronics guys could get a pass to get into the building (24-hour staff?) to use things… that sort of thing (what The Geek Group was aiming for).
You’re right in that it doesn’t have to be a national-level thing. It could be a city thing, county thing, state thing, regional thing, whatever… but there should be a hacker/makerspace kind of thing that can be accessed by locals for whatever… as long as there is enough people who would want it. If there isn’t any draw for a laser lab, then there really isn’t much reason to have a laser lab.
And… of course… like you said, it doesn’t HAVE to involve beer… but, if everyone kicks a couple bucks in for a night at Joe’s garage to make a blinky thing and learn how to solder… maybe it’d work (kind of a back to the roots of makerspaces kind of thing).
Bwahahaha. Wow even with commodifying the movement, adding IP in an opensource mindset, having conventions in cities that most of its supporters could not travel to, and partnering with other evil overlords, they still couldn’t pull it off. It is not like you actually compensated folks properly for forking their hard work in the name of the “community” you turned into a business and snuggled up to the capitalist cherry amtel capemaker on top, Limor. Yeah this is actually a happy day for me. I am sure some really nice folks lost their jobs but there are always companies looking for people that can build giant Connect Four boards with Arduino scoreboards ;)
I liked Make for a long time and I am legitimately sad to see them shutter. I was so happy to find out that I wasn’t alone in wanting to dive deeper into electronics and carpentry and other crafts. A lot of comments on this article are indicative of why something needed to come along and expand and connect the maker audience, otherwise the same voices just dominated the conversation and communities over and over again.
Make fell out of favor with me personally for a combination of things.
The first is the changing of format from the digest quarterly to the large magazine format. This dropped the perceived value of each issue. It felt less special.
The second was the proliferation of sponsored by (x) company buying guides for Arduino style boards and 3DP. Even though I loved the 3DP coverage (guess I’m a hated hipster who doesn’t belong :eyeroll) It felt weird that a buying guide was replacing more engaging coverage. It would have been nice if these were special editions and not part of the normal monthly releases, but the logistics of it were probably impossible.
The third was the litigiousness of Maker media and the use of the word Maker, it’s a bad look when people trying to organize local maker fairs get sued. That’s no way to build a community.
All seem like symptoms of trying to push the community mainstream for maximum profit, but that’s what happens when you take VC I guess.
Make’s biggest legacy was to be used as a weapon in one of the worst tragedies of open source; theft of credit of Wiring, and mis-attributing the origins of Arduino to Massimo Banzi
Hernando Barragán worked for years on Wiring, occasionally showing his progress to advisor Massimo Banzi. When Massimo being laid off, he quietly forked Hernando’s work, refused to take Hernando’s phone calls then started visiting Make promoting “his” invention (unbeknownst to Hernando until it was far too late). “Arduino was written in a weekend” <– almost verbatim quote.
Make magazine also made the 3D printer revolution all about Makebot, despite much having been taken from open source, with credit falsely attributed.
I get the sense if you wanted to take credit for someone's well-engineered but unknown project, all you had to do was fork or copy it then take Make out for sushi.
Caveat: Forks happen all the time; no big deal. The part that bothers me is the rewriting of history and mis-attribution of credit. When you interview folks, your supposed to challenge and everything.
Since they went large-format, it was hard to differentiate Make from Sharper Image. But this damage they did lives forever.
I was never really impressed with Make: Magazine. I felt a lot of the content was too simple, and often rehashed from earlier editions. Occasionally they had something I had an interest in reading so I had a digital subscription for a year that I could download the PDF and read how I wanted to, but then they changed ti to some stupid reader that made it harder to access, and I could no longer download it. Since I could no longer read it my way and had to rely on stupid web app, I cancelled.
I dunno. I sorta think the nail in the coffin was trying to wrap a pyramid scheme of tech entreprenurialism around *hobbies*…
Would this increase or decrease the value of my Make/RadioShack branded Electronics Kits I picked up when RS was liquidating?
The kits and the associated books are the only things I have purchased with their name on it.
I tried to organise a MakerFaire at the school I used to work at. The criteria they (Make Media) had made it totally impossible to be run given the financial and time constraints. We did run a sort of maker faire but it was less about the community and more about local businesses, which I felt was a shame.
{yawn} Kiddie stuff.
Make Magazine was the Time/Life book series of the maker movement. Glossy, flashy, and just enough info to tease you. If it was a meal, you’d be starving ten minutes after you ate it. I never subscribed but I did read through several issues over the years. There was just so little meat to it that I could never justify paying for it.