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I do some occasional woodworking as a hobby, but I never thought it would give me any insight into the world of technology until I bought a Ryobi table saw about ten years ago. My wife and I had just moved into a townhouse in Brooklyn that had been abandoned for ten years and the place needed a lot of work. I needed a cheap, reliable saw for cutting door moldings and shelves, and eventually for building some furniture for the apartment.

Ryobi sells entry-level power tools to weekend woodworkers through chain stores and over the Internet, and I had never thought of them as an attractive brand until I came across an Internet forum discussing their uniquely designed BT3000 table saw. This particular saw has a sliding miter table design which is unusual in a low-cost tool, and even though Ryobi is not known for durability or extreme precision, this internet forum positively buzzed with enthusiasm from owners who used the saw and wanted to share their tips and projects.

I felt weirdly voyeuristic as a latte-drinking Park Slope yuppie reading technical posts by midwestern guys named Don and Gene about the finer points of joinery, motor maintenance, dust collection, and how to fit a wood shop in the garage next to the Oldsmobile station wagon. But the discussions were fascinating and informative, and the photos posted by forum members provided inspiration that beautiful things could be made with limited resources and experience.

I bought the saw and enjoyed several years of reliable service from it before our family expanded and we took over the basement wood shop for storage space. In the meantime, I continued to be amazed by the passion and dedication from the Ryobi forum members. My favorite thread involved one gentleman from Illinois who built half of a cutting jig to make a piece of furniture but couldn’t figure out how finish the project. He ended up shipping it to another forum member in Australia, who finished it for him and shipped it back. They posted a photo of the completed project on the forum.

I haven’t been back to the forum in several years, but I checked this morning and they have over 100,000 posts on various topics, including 19,000 posts about the power saw itself. You can take a look by following this link here. This is obviously considerably more information than any one individual needs to know, but it gives a little window into the information-rich environment that surrounds commerce in the Internet age. Ryobi did a smart thing by sponsoring the forum, even through not all the posts were favorable, because it ultimately led to the creation of a passionate community of loyal customers. From what I understand, the feedback on the forum also helped Ryobi redesign later versions of their saw for increased reliability.