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I belong to three different community workshops: a membership-based wood shop, a motorcycle repair shop that offers both memberships and drop-in work, and an electronics shop for members. At each I enjoy access to far better tools than I ever had at home, especially the motorcycle shop where I would never have something like a crane, a parts washer, cylinder reamers, and tire changing machines. I feel like this model is greatly superior to garage DIY.

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>a motorcycle repair shop that offers both memberships and drop-in work

Wow, I never heard of such a thing. Or, I heard many years ago of something vaguely like that, and also how it wasn't viable financially. I think Click & Clack said they'd tried to run a do-it-yourself-with-our-tools garage and there were too many idiots.

I wasn't aware of any such thing existing in my area, anyway.

https://www.motoguild-sf.com/

Membership-based shops and clubs seem to work much better than 'everyone can come' scheme. Even at Google the maker spaces require an intro class, and an approval from one of the managing members. And one can make a case that a googler is expected to be a more responsible person than a random member of the elite no-car community.

Having to get readability for the maker space is the most googly thing I can imagine.

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