Just an in and out thought/prompt or two triggered by what Bob has just said.
The experience in model aircraft (or at least the road the industry has gone down) is largely pre-fabricated stuff - at much higher prices than would have been the case historically. The 'makers' these days are not, they have become just brands that buy from low labour locations in the East.
There's not a lot of the old style cut it out, glue and pin it down on a plan balsa stick and tissue construction about any more.
Like many things it used to be a lifetime hobby, with many years spent accumulating skills. Nowadays it still can be, and can still get very sophisticated and high rent, but there's equally quite a few that come in and out at lower skill levels, but throw money at it as a lifestyle choice for a few years.
Materials like composites (at the very high end), blow moulded plastics and various types of formed, moulded and cut rigid (e.g polyurethane and other) and low strength (e.g. polystyrene) foams have become common.
Where kits still use built/glued up wooden construction the old tissue and nylon coverings have been largely replaced by self coloured heat shrinking iron on plastic films with heat activated backing adhesives.
Where wood is still used in kits the use of (now very low cost) CNC controlled laser profiling systems has become common place - these cut out not just thin sheet balsa, but also quite heavy ply etc too with almost perfect accuracy. The old style cutting of parts out of sheet with a modelling knife is almost non existent.
CNC cutters of the type used by sign writers to die cut lettering etc from marking films are also used to make stickers etc.
There's quite a lot of high cost high tech high cost manufactured items in use, but relatively these have got very cheap too. Examples are radio control systems, engines, high tech electric motors and battery systems. A very large part of this market is (often as carded/bagged) accessories - e.g. control linkages, finishing materials, fasteners, adhesives, paints, films etc - often quite large brands in their own right.
Finally there's the usual 'us and them-ism' - the hobby is split up into 'tribes', each with their own very closed minded sub cultures. Competition/recreational, differing disciplines (helicopters/gliders/aircraft/boats/?), vintage/classic, scale replica etc.
Maybe there's some angles in there...