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Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

One industry that completely thrived but has declined, are the folks making the masks.

I recall when Grandmothers rejoiced as they broke out their sewing machines and we’re making masks left and right raking in money. In a way, it reminded me of the modern day victory Garden.

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That was always going to be a very temporary boom. The only reason there was an opportunity was because supply was suddenly and vastly dwarfed by demand for weeks. As soon as large mask manufacturers were able to ramp up production, the grannies were doomed.

Good point, but I think that microcosm event, home spun mask businesses, will be an MBA case study. If it hasn’t already.

Yeah that and the knowledge we now have that N95 masks work great for both the wearer and for those exposed to the wearer while cloth masks are basically useless for preventing any kind of spread without some additional filter that most cottage industrialists do not include in their design and manufacturing process.

Some crazies want to make them permanent, thankfully only a vocal minority it seems.

From what I've heard, it was mostly the mask manufactures that ramped up production that were doomed since they made large investments and now demand is back to nothing and Chinese imports are back.

The real winners were those who already had production capacity and didn't make any capital investment.

The Grannies made some money and then stopped. but they didn't go broke.

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