Hacker Lab Is Closing
As a co-founder of a hackerspace this makes me sad to see. I wholeheartedly agree that these spaces provide a value to their communities disproportionate to their cost to operate. However usually these situations come from a lack of time for the board&#x2F;high-energy-members to participate in the needed fundraising activities. Our space is organized by 100% volunteer effort, I&#x27;m guessing there is a similar situation for Hacker Lab (or else this is a fundraising tactic itself, it&#x27;s been done before by other spaces). In the beginning we had the energy to get a lot of stuff done, but that energy gets consumed by inertia and overhead of keeping a space running once it becomes &quot;successful&quot;. Until a space becomes large enough to have a paid board of directors in some form it seems the energy of the board glides downwards over time. However without the overhead of a paid board a space can glide for years on thin margins. I&#x27;d say it&#x27;s almost a catch-22.<p>I don&#x27;t agree the government should just hand out indefinite free money for these spaces to operate though because it would also kill them in due time. If a space doesn&#x27;t have people with the drive to keep it running it would likely consume tax payer funds and provide less and less value over time from mis-management. I&#x27;m not suggesting grants are not a good thing though, grants have specific goals in mind and start and stop windows of operation.<p>Hopefully they get some angel donors out of this posting to HN ;-).