I cannot imagine the scale of the economical damage of all this...
In the StarTrek style future you could get anything you need for free. We're just exiting the era where we were having anything we wanted for $9.99 or whatever low silly price the people in Guangdong and Dongguan were ready to accept. Is there a difference between the free and low silly price? Yes, the low silly price still makes you not-that-wasteful like the free could. Anyway, it is the end of an era.
And it wasn't just era of cheapness, it was also an era of variety, as many trinkets which were economical to produce for the whole world wouldn't be economical to produce in/for the walled tariff gardens.
This comment is silly and not a great critique of Star Trek economics.
To hack Star Trek imagine the replicator system as a transport pad and then think about who controls the transporters. Next, imagine the phaser system as a transporter pad. Now you have a critique.
It doesnt apply to businesses.
And, consumers importing amounts over $800 is probably fairly unusual.
> And, consumers importing amounts over $800 is probably fairly unusual.
Not true. It’s common to receive phones and laptops shipped internationally from Apple, for example.
I don’t understand why some people are searching for ways to dismiss and downplay this in these comments. DHL is doing this because the volume of processing was excessively high now that the thresholds are lower. That means a lot of packages were meeting this criteria.
> I don’t understand why some people are searching for ways to dismiss and downplay this in these comments.
"I don't do it, therefore it is unusual for it to happen in the first place."
It's very hard to take dismissive, flatly stated comments like GP's in good faith. I usually expect better from this site, but a lot has changed in the last few years.
> consumers importing amounts over $800 is probably fairly unusual
Likely not—I have a Macbook Pro on order from the Apple Store, shipped via DHL with origin from Shanghai, and currently jammed up in Cleveland.
It literally says in the notice that threshold value lowered from $2,500 to $800 caused a surge in volume of clearance processing which is why they're suspending it. They can't keep up with the volume.
Is it unusual to buy a laptop, stereo equipment, or things for pretty much every hobby from abroad?
Can you buy a bike for less than $800? A camera (Say from Japan perhaps)? A good fountain pen from Japan, Germany or Italy?
That's basically every Prusa sale unless you're buying from Printed Solid.
Wouldn't most US shipments be coming from Printed Solid? That's Prusa's US distributor.
Most people don't order from Printed Solid, because they've historically been more expensive than just importing a Prusa. I imagine that will change now.
Many electronic music gear purchases from small companies outside the US exceed that threshold. This is certainly going to hit the small producers in the synth and electronic music industry.