Yeah, this really sucks. Both from your personal perspective and for a just excellent source of material.
I was doing up a project this week and realized I only have one section of chain link fence left.....argh.
And I also confirmed (without using names) the report about the commercial etcher, kind of the hard way. I was hoping that wasn't true.
It's going to hit more than just GMM.
The supply chain in modeling is a lot more limited and fragile than you think. I've learned that the hard way, we all remember how Rivarossi just ..... disappeared, all the Yugo stuff....disappeared. Who controls the tooling, and where it is, is a real issue. And in China, unlike 'our' practice, a company can just close and walk out and everybody shows up to find locked doors. It's happened. I lost my gearhead supplier with no trace. Even if the product line has value, doing an orderly transition OUTSIDE the US is very tricky. Shapeways, bang, you're dead.