Here in my city there’s actually a place that is pretty much that. They have a table saw and other woodworking tools that you pay a small fee to use per month and if you want your own space you can join the collective and you get a reserved space big enough for a workbench or two.
I can’t quite pin down what annoys me so much about them. Maybe that people put them up as a form of “protest” that doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Or virtue signaling.
Were gulags actually terrible places to be or was it just a place to reform counter-revolutionaries? The term “re-education” still sounds creepy though.