RadioShack

RadioShack was the electronics store for tinkerers, hobbyists, and dads who needed a specific cable right now. At its peak, the chain had over 7,000 stores and was the place where a generation of engineers built their first circuits. The TRS-80, one of the first mass-market personal computers, was a RadioShack product.

The problem was identity. RadioShack spent two decades trying to figure out what it was. Was it a phone store? A consumer electronics retailer? A parts shop for makers? It tried to rebrand as 'The Shack,' which pleased nobody. The stores got smaller, the selection got worse, and asking for your phone number and zip code at checkout became a national joke.

RadioShack filed for bankruptcy in 2015, and again in 2017. General Wireless closed the remaining stores. The brand was bought by Retail Ecommerce Ventures, which turned it into an online store. Then the brand pivoted to cryptocurrency. Then it started posting unhinged tweets about memecoins. The corpse is technically still moving, but whatever is wearing the RadioShack name has nothing to do with the company that sold you resistors and 9-volt batteries.