In most parts of the world, makers are under appreciated, yet they continue making things. It's about the passion of creating things.. The author does not get it.
The author gets that entirely, after all, she has done the same.
Her point is that we have begun to fetishize the idea of making as somehow superior to other pursuits. What started off as a good thing (a contrast to consumerism and receiving whole products and whole systems from others, as other commenters have suggested) has been raised in value far beyond the worth of anyone who does not "produce" "tangible" "things"...
...the author being an excellent example, what with her being "only" a professor of engineering. She is "building" generations of makers, an activity valuable in its own right, and yet others feel the need to somehow tag her as a "maker", a label she rejects, in order to somehow validate her work.
The broader point is that we do a poor job of recognizing the inherent value in many roles - not financial, necessarily, though we fetishize that as well - and that we therefore run the risk of distracting worthy occupants of those roles with our "only one way to contribute" dogma.
Is this a first world problem? maybe that's why i don't get it. In most parts of the world, makers are the ones who are perceived to have less value, get pay less and have less recognition than the business types, the managers, etc.
