> The problem is no-one knows how to use the parts unless they are assembled into kits.
Huh? If anything, in the good old days, there were WAY more kits than there are today. Besides that, hobby electronics has a long history of doing stuff like "Here's a schematic, here's a BOM, and here's a paragraph on the 'theory of operation' that assumes a solid understanding of electronics and a bunch of domain-specific stuff. Good luck!" -- Pretty much the same as it is today, except we have resources like http://electronics.stackexchange.com/ to answer our questions. Wish that stuff was around when I was younger.
Kits just save you the trouble of making your own PCBs and hunting down parts on Digikey.
I think there are more kits now. There used to be kits for oscilloscopes, test equipment etc. Now these are black boxes, some of which are a joke.
We had something better than stack exchange - we got an electronics book and a maths book out of the local library and studied it, understood it and developed mental models, rather than expecting a canned answer to plug in somewhere.
And yes I have scars from ferric chloride accidents.
So everything studied is instantly understood? People have no need to ask questions? Have mentors?
Sure, some people are looking to plug-and-play answers, but that will always be the case. You can't solve that by telling the kids to 'get off your lawn.'
Huh? If anything, in the good old days, there were WAY more kits than there are today. Besides that, hobby electronics has a long history of doing stuff like "Here's a schematic, here's a BOM, and here's a paragraph on the 'theory of operation' that assumes a solid understanding of electronics and a bunch of domain-specific stuff. Good luck!" -- Pretty much the same as it is today, except we have resources like http://electronics.stackexchange.com/ to answer our questions. Wish that stuff was around when I was younger.
Kits just save you the trouble of making your own PCBs and hunting down parts on Digikey.