"So if the ease of shipping hardware even approached the ease of shipping software, we'd see a lot more hardware startups."
So what kind of startup can facilitate that change?
So what kind of startup can facilitate that change?
You'd need:
* Significant improvements in 3D printing
* the ability to construct circuits as part of 3D printing
* a much wider range of materials available.
Essentially, you'd need to be able to ship hardware as a digital good. Which raises the huge question of DRM. The recent years of software startups side-stepped that by going the SaaS approach. (You'll notice desktop software is pretty much dead. There are no major new projects in that area since probably ~2008 or so.)
HaaS is going to be much more difficult. (Not necessarily undoable. Minds on too much coffee have suggested going a biological route, where devices just decompose after a certain time)
There is also an interesting podcast on the process: http://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-113-sudden-sinoamerican-s...
3D printing could do this, in theory.
There's a company trying to do this for life sciences: https://angel.co/transcriptic
I wonder too if there's some streamlining to be done in the supply chain. Look at how Amazon streamlined retail to a point that they serve not only as a catalog/payment service, but also a fulfillment house. Is there something like that to be done with supply chain? Manufacturing?
I know there's companies out there in those areas, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's not still big gains to be made somehow.
As soon as you're selling hardware, you're dealing with customs, FCC (or equivalent) regulations, a lot more safety regulations, etc.
2. Making in easy to do testing and verify reliability, both at the development stages and at the manufacturing stages.
3. Making it easy to port the arduino to other platforms or porting it to other interesting platforms(full porting including good library support).