Ask HN: What Happened to Franchises?

I don't see many people here post a show hn about a franchise business and plans they are offering. There are so many creative DIY technologies. I remember my dad explaining franchises to me when I was about 14 in 1990. I think it could be cool to have be either a franchisor or a franchisee. Well for me a franchisee because I rarely succeed in business.

Low volume custom manufacturing of high precision parts would be interesting. Unfortunately I think there is no demand for something like this. So the little guy wanting to take advantage of all this wonderful creative technology cannot really do so to support his shop. He needs thousands of dollars of revenue per month. How could he do that and also pay and come up with genius marketing to make people ever even ring the phone, or order and pickup or ship an item? Maybe their could be parametric design tools for certain parts. Enter power, weight, efficiency now make me a sterling engine. That sort of thing.

Uber could be replaced by a federation of dispatchers. Why didn't one of these monster cab companies in the metros make their own franchise app? It doesn't even have to be an app. It could be as simple as a website like www.yellowcab.com/marion-oh and everything in that page will get you what you need. Railroads need to move crew either by bus or by cab. I don't think they use uber for this.

Franchises give small business a way of accessing big business marketing. Gives us away of transforming a hobby into a viable path to independence. I like the idea of a battle tested business plan that you can use and I can accept the fees to stay with it.

I like the idea of match maker websites. But I hate the idea of becoming even lower than a wage slave, a contract worker. All the liability is on the contract worker. All the profit goes to Uber where it is spent on making 300 mb apps.