How it looks like trying to buy printer ink in 8 cities

December 20, 2022 2:01 AM

This is what a tech market looks like in:-- Rest of The World's correspondents share their photo essays from: Taipei, Jakarta, São Paulo, Lagos, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bengaluru, and Mexico City.
posted by cendawanita (11 comments total)

It was an interesting link, thank you cendawanita.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:29 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

One guy in Jakarta has PS5s in stock!

Cool link.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:14 AM on December 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

I love places like this, perhaps as a function of growing up in a city that didn't have the same sort of district at all. The closest parallel in my hometown is areas of "light industrial" zoning where you can walk into cluttered showrooms of businesses that cater more to tradespeople than individual consumers. But because land is cheap and everybody has a car you don't get the same concentration of stores that all sell the same category of stuff, allowing you to comparison shop on foot. And even though I live in a much denser area now, there's still no single market or neighborhood where all those shops could be located. The places that exist at all are scattered in different suburbs. A decade or two ago when you wanted to build a PC from parts you'd go to the MarketPro Computer Show and Sale (check that 2000s era web design) and get that flea market experience (a logic board here, a CPU there, an OEM hard drive over there by the door). But they were weekends only, in rotating locations, and it was always a bit of a crapshoot after you'd spent nearly an hour in the car just to get there. (Weirdly, just describing it is making me miss it a little, though).

Anyway. On a trip to Tokyo I spent way too much time in Akihabara and that's after deciding I dare not even set foot in some of the stalls, lest I end up spending a fortune I'd later regret. I don't build computers from parts these days but I will always check out every used audio or camera shop I pass. Vintage audio equipment is too difficult to maintain and film is an expensive hobby I won't allow myself to pick up again, but looking is free.
posted by fedward at 8:33 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

These are great, and so familiar to any traveler. There's always that moment when one is in need of a sim card, or a charging adapter, or repair for a cell phone or camera while traveling. These competent faces then seem so familiar.
I am most curious about the woman pouring beer? into a popcorn cup, rimmed with chocolate and peanuts? no caption, what gives?
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:40 AM on December 20, 2022

It's a michelada, mentioned in the text. I love that it's being served in a repurposed popcorn cup. When we visit my mother-in-law in Tucson we see prepared cups sold in basically every corner market. Just add cold beer.
posted by fedward at 9:48 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thanks -- I had one in Madrid last year that was awesome. It was spicey and tomato based, i should have realized that there would be variety.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:57 AM on December 20, 2022

One of my hobbies is using google maps and street view to go touring all over the world, and part of that is trying to look into small stores and shops and find user created photospheres or photopaths inside these shops.

At this point there are an incredible amount of tiny little shops that have photo tours posted, and of course the small local tech shops tend to be the more common shops that do have inside photos posted.

I've seen a lot of small techy stalls, shops and stands in a lot of impoverished and working class favelas, barrios and related kinds of areas where they sell phone cards, game cards, offer documentation and copy services and many of them often have bulk printer ink and refills for sale, so there will be some display or shelf usually under or behind the counter with liter sized bottles of ink, and presumably, tools to hack and reset ink cartridges with chip locks.

I've found little tech shops like this all over the world in unlikely places.

The whole thing gives me real cyberpunk vibes.
posted by loquacious at 11:33 AM on December 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

Please forgive the pedantry.

How it looks or What it looks like.
posted by Splunge at 11:38 AM on December 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

There's something about the kind of signage you get on tech shops that's almost universal, different languages aside. My little English seaside town doesn't have a tech district, but its scattering of phone repair shops could be a translation of something plucked from any of these places.
posted by entity447b at 11:50 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Please forgive the pedantry.

Oh no no, that's useful! This seems like a tricky thing in English, I don't think I've ever learned the distinction when learning the language. lemme look up the grammar for this...
posted by cendawanita at 7:12 PM on December 20, 2022

These could slot right into 8 different cyberpunk novels.
posted by Harald74 at 5:01 AM on December 22, 2022