Compared to 30 years ago, I think the hobby electronics market has changed a lot.
Partly it's because a lot of the kids who would have been assembling Heathkits in 1980 are now making minecraft mods.
But even without that, there's been a shift in the electronics market. There are high demand, medium demand, and long tail components. Everyone has the high demand components at home. The long tail components aren't in high enough demand to stock in expensive-to-run high street stores, so they can only be mail ordered. The medium demand components are in between - the range is wide enough that people don't have them all already, but limited enough and in high enough demand that a high street store can satisfy demand and make enough money to stay in business.
30 years ago, medium demand components were things like 7400-series logic chips. Today, microprocessors like the arduino have most of that stuff built in, or can be programmed to do it. Nobody needs to go to the shops because they need a positive edge triggered dual D-type flip-flop and all they have at home is a dual master slave JK flip-flop.
I tend to largely agree with this, although if there was a store that stocked what Sparkfun or Adafruit have in their online store that I could go into and browse, I'd probably spend $100 a week in there.
Partly it's because a lot of the kids who would have been assembling Heathkits in 1980 are now making minecraft mods.
But even without that, there's been a shift in the electronics market. There are high demand, medium demand, and long tail components. Everyone has the high demand components at home. The long tail components aren't in high enough demand to stock in expensive-to-run high street stores, so they can only be mail ordered. The medium demand components are in between - the range is wide enough that people don't have them all already, but limited enough and in high enough demand that a high street store can satisfy demand and make enough money to stay in business.
30 years ago, medium demand components were things like 7400-series logic chips. Today, microprocessors like the arduino have most of that stuff built in, or can be programmed to do it. Nobody needs to go to the shops because they need a positive edge triggered dual D-type flip-flop and all they have at home is a dual master slave JK flip-flop.