I sympathize with your disappointment, but I'm honestly not surprised by what happened. I never expected much to come from it except for introducing a few more people to light manufacturing.
The reason is that the people who were already going to do this (actual mechanical engineers and machinists) had a path forward: buying used CNC machinery and starting up in their garages. And many of them did/are doing this, but it's not the kind of thing that's discussed unless you are on a manufacturing forum, which HN definitely is not.
Part of the problem is that if you're going to make a living doing it, you need professional quality tools that can run all day, every day. "Maker" level tooling won't do that.
The reason is that the people who were already going to do this (actual mechanical engineers and machinists) had a path forward: buying used CNC machinery and starting up in their garages. And many of them did/are doing this, but it's not the kind of thing that's discussed unless you are on a manufacturing forum, which HN definitely is not.
Part of the problem is that if you're going to make a living doing it, you need professional quality tools that can run all day, every day. "Maker" level tooling won't do that.