He had a big hammer
The more I study, the more I realize that the world is a bad place. For anyone trying to earn an honest living by making stuff, at least. I watched a video about fake parts, and I came away with the conviction that if you can buy it, someone else is already copying your idea for profit. Some of the details in the video made me want to hide away in my basement (airplane parts that can cause said airplane to fall out of the sky). In one case, a $300 bolt had been replaced with a $30 and things went wrong. Scratch one airplane.
Stories about of companies that send manufacturing “abroad”, only to find that their great idea was now available to the world. Having to split a job into pieces and find companies that could make half the part and not tell their tale raises the cost for the rest of us.
And what about a small company that manufactures something with limited sales (in this case, a battery heater) and posts advertising photos on their website. There are some very capable reverse engineers out there, and suddenly your market belongs to the competition. Enough to keep me from wanting to tell you my great idea.
To be fair, I have never had that risk. The one time; no, I prefer to forget about it.
My grandfather was a blacksmith, and his efforts were unique. You wouldn’t find his artisan hinge on sale in the local hardware emporium, because his clients were local and honest. Also, he had a big hammer, like Thor.
