Tariffs Killed Arduboy | Hacker News Reader

Tariffs Killed Arduboy

community.arduboy.com

64 pointsBondi_Blue24 comments

My first reaction is that this just pushes up the price point for an entire segment of the industry for U.S. customers, but it doesn't seem like it would outright _kill_ companies like this.

But then I thought a bit deeper.

Any small company that relies on profits from the last batch to fund the next batch will certainly just be killed or need to acquire debt to fund purchasing of parts/stock under new tariffs. That really sucks for small manufacturers.

I was just about to launch a small business based on a circuit I designed and had manufactured in China. The business also relies on LEDs that are simply not available outside of China. I could have had a $50,000 tax credit to start my small business if the other side won, but no, now I have to pay so much more and it just doesn't work for me as a very small start-up. The tariffs have killed my business before it even really started.

I've heard about businesses that had to jump into a fundraising mode to prepare for the tariffs just so they could receive product. There's also the problem in less direct sales where businesses in the chain expect a certain margin. Simply passing on the tariffs quickly leads to large price increases to the customers. I've looked at a few ways to pass on the tariff and none are very appealing, likely the healthiest option is to try to spreading the effect out by reducing margins at various stages.

I feel lucky that the tariffs were announced at a a time where we were preparing to order new inventory. Otherwise the cash flow effects would be ruinous. Unfortunately we primarily export and there is a real chance we move our manufacturing out of the US as a result of this mess.

> There's also the problem in less direct sales where businesses in the chain expect a certain margin. Simply passing on the tariffs quickly leads to large price increases to the customers.

This is what a lot of people aren't understanding. If the tariff is added by the first middleman, each additional middleman between that first one and the customer is adding their increase to that existing increase and the base price, not just the original base price.

Yea, it's really the opposite of the stated desired effect, small businesses will go under or not even start, while Target and Walmart afforded to pre-stock their warehouses to ride the wave as best they can. Amazon already informed suppliers they "won't be accepting price increases". So we will all just be working for the big box stores and nobody will be living the American Dream of starting their own company.

And, since this is all really just chaos without a plan, what happens when replacement suppliers don't spring up all over the USA?

You kind of saw this with Brexit as well; it was marketed by its proponents as somehow helping small businesses, but of course in the end it hurt or killed them; its impacts on the likes of Amazon, while not nothing, were more muted.

(Brexit, mind you, was on most dimensions not as a severe as the Trump tariffs; it's really going to be very ugly a few months down the line if they're maintained.)

If you think tariffs only affect small manufacturers, just wait until the accumulated machine spares and parts stock of the local major ones run out.

I can tell you, up close and personal, that the COVID era already was pretty f.cking nasty for all manufacturers with costs booming thanks to supply chain issues.

Trumps tariffs bullshit is the COVID era on steroids. Seriously. Just wait and see.

> Any small company that relies on profits from the last batch to fund the next batch will certainly just be killed or need to acquire debt to fund purchasing of parts/stock under new tariffs.

That's pretty much _all_ small companies, whether by actually selling the products or by borrowing or otherwise fundraising on the basis of future revenue. Few companies can just go "oh, our inputs are doubling in price, we'll just double the sticker price and everything will be fine"; few markets work like that.

The tariffs really should've been phased in slowly to give supply chains time to adjust.

But one thing we learned from COVID is the market is dumb and over-optimizes for a small number of factors, so there won't be any significant adjustment in supply chains or redistribution of capability without drastic government corrective action.

The time required would be measured in, at least, years (Brexit was in most ways less severe, and was a broadly known factor for 5 years before implementation, and a precisely known one for over a year before, and there were still very severe problems and many small businesses died), so presumably not attractive to Trump, who seems into instant gratification.

Unfortunately this won’t be the last casualty. We are looking at a Covid-style disruption of the economy here. This will not end well for anybody…

It sucks because electronics manufacturing the US both sucks and is wildly expensive. The people who are actually manning these places matters a lot, and it's mostly unskilled low wage workers who are there just to work. They might have come from a job pallet stacking and leave to stock grocery shelves a few months later. There isn't much specialty because there isn't much industry to build it up in.

You end up with a high cost per unit, and a bad yield at that. And trust me, when one capacitor value is misplaced causing intermittent failure, because a worker had to tape additional parts on a reel and didn't know that "look the same != is the same", you can easily sink in 40-50 hours trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with the 5 units that are failing ask me how I know I have many many examples lol

What is Arduboy ? I went to the site and seemed they sell Games. Is that correct ?

If only some vast repository of knowledge that can be searched in milliseconds didn't exist.

Based on the discussion it appears it's an actual device. I confirmed this by navigating my browser to https://www.arduboy.com/

It looks like a miniature gaming system (like a GameBoy) that also lets you make your own games and upload them to the device: https://www.arduboy.com/

It's a credit-card-sized Gameboy (hence the "boy" part of the name) powered by an ATmega32u4 microcontroller (hence the "Ardu" part).

>It's a credit-card-sized Gameboy (hence the "boy" part of the name) powered by an ATmega32u4 microcontroller (hence the "Ardu" part).

I didn't read that article and I was able to deduce that, not really sure how the guy you're replying to claims to have went to the site and still can't figure it out.

Why not call it Ardukid (if it's resurrected)? I.e., evolve from Gameboy and not bring in gender from the very beginning where it's irrelevant (for the next generation). Imagine if you're a young girl interested in tech. It's those little paper cuts that lead to a world with gender imbalances for no very good reason.

Might as well just rename that product entirely, then. Ditching the "Boy" part of the name loses the allusion to the Nintendo system.

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