Comment by delichon
19 hours ago
These kits can have extraordinary longevity. I was playing with Lincoln Logs in 1967. Turns out they got started in 1918. Lego bricks have been around since 1945. The moat created by seriously delighting your customers at a young age is large.
It is a really nice concept. I had never heard of it. But then as GenX at young age I played with Fishertechnik [0] more than with Lego. Around since 1966 [1].
[0] https://www.fischertechnik.de/en
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik
I'd love to play with fischertechnik again...
https://www.fischertechnik.de/en/industry-and-universities -- Factorio on a shelf would be neat (but "request quote" tends to suggest its out of my price range https://www.studica.com/fischertechnik/fischertechnik-factor... )
https://www.fischertechnik.de/en/maker
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I first saw fischertechnik at an engineering expo at the local university in the 80s. There was a terminal and you'd enter the type of candy you wanted, and it had a robotic system that got it from the shelving... which was neat. The backside of it had another robotic system that got a piece of candy from a conveyer belt (of many different ones), identified it, and put it in the now empty spot.
Construx is what I played with. It was only sold for a few years.
> The moat created by seriously delighting your customers at a young age is large.
I'm not sure that's enough: most kids wouldn't be able to tell a genuine Lego brick from a knock-off.
(Lego famously has insane quality control on their tolerances. But I haven't had any trouble with knock-off bricks so far either.)
I'm sure that Lego still captures virtually all of the revenue in this category, no?
Maybe, I'm not sure. Though Wikipedia demonstrates that you don
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Don't forget Erector Sets.
I spend untold hours failing to build a cable tramway between my mother's dresser and bed.
But at least now I'm an expert at pylon design!
> The moat created by seriously delighting your customers at a young age is large.
I wish Meccano would get its shit together. I can’t see anything I want on their limited site and there is so much cool stuff that could be made.
https://www.meccano.com/