71–80 of 450 posts
Problem (?): We can't produce open hardware for things that others have patented. Chinese companies (and maybe others) are patenting lots of things, including things we might have ourselves developed and intended to keep open, so it makes it difficult and/or expensive for us to continue developing.
Is that it?
The real story here is that IP ownership is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. Open-source and community-led IP contributions are grossly under-protected because of this, and those with capital become unopposed predators. This is a special-case of the more general observation that the justice system is capital-intensive when it shouldn't be. The answer is something you very rarely hear: the US (especially) needs…
While I don't entirely disagree with you. You have to understand why the courts exist at all. To govern working class citizens. Laws are written by the powerful and wealthy - always has been - to control the working class (everyone else). You're freedom is an illusion. A social contract agreed upon by you following certain rules. Those rules, written by the wealthy, don't apply to the wealthy. In a just society they…
When did we start being a just society would you say? WWI? The Civil Rights Act? Unless you really stretch things, saying that justice declined in the last 50 years - even if true - means that justice "peaked" for a short period of maybe a generation. I suspect if you actually lived in that era[1] you wouldn't think that though so this whole framing is based on false nostalgia for a time you never experienced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While I'd lean more towards plain ol' capitalism as the reason for small market players going under He seems to point pretty directly to Chinese subsidies allowing those printers to be sold under cost. That’s not capitalism.
Amazon operated under cost for years to capture the market, how is this any different?
And the government sat on its hands and our representatives loved all the Prime boxes stacked at their doorstep. It has ensh#ttified entire industries that once depended upon retail as their interface with customers.
If you are a hobbyist or small business in desktop manufacturing you are basically forced to buy Chinese products. I have never owned a Prusa, but I have owned several Creality and Bambu Labs printers, because I could get the same utility at half the cost. The same goes for soldering irons, linear actuators, oscillscopes, etc. I still buy European hand tools (Knipex, Wera, etc) because I know they won't break in a ye…
For most people this is just fine - your goals were not to build a 3d printer it was to build something that just happens to be build able on a 3d printer. That is the something you are building is the goal, not building a 3d printer. If the goal isn't building a 3d printer then buying a 3d printer that someone else has already debugged and made to work is the better way to get to what you really want to do in the fi…
> There are plenty of other ways to build something other than 3d print. Yes but the fewest come at the price and versatility as 3D printing. Injection molding is very expensive and hard to do in the basement. Wood working too, requires lots of time, skills and many tools...
You can make everything in your basement, just like you can make a 3d printer in your basement, and for similar prices. Almost nobody does it, but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
> Wood working too, requires lots of time, skills and many tools...
Skill is developed. You can do woodworking with just a sharp rock you find, no need for any more tools. Most people in woodworking choose to trade money for time and buy a lot of tools, but you can decide how far you want to go.
Time is the real constraint for everything of course. However that is my original point - if your goal isn't building a 3d printer (a fine goal) then trading money for time and buying the tools (which might or might not be a 3d printer) is probably you best bet. Assuming you have money to buy a 3d printer of course, but if you don't than a sharp rock and woodworking is probably your best hobby just because it is what you can afford.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this is an article about patent trolling and government involvement, not innovation or competition on price
Why do they feel the need to talk about it? Because their $1000 (which was recently reduced in price even) bedslinger is outclassed by a $349 Bambu Lab A1, and they have lost their position as the printer to buy.
While I'd lean more towards plain ol' capitalism as the reason for small market players going under, the final point of the article (discussing patent related legal barriers on existing open source innovation becoming a main strategy of large industry players) is a very important one to keep in mind for people on this site in the hardware startup space: "This is a story from 3D printing, but all the areas with heavy…
> While I'd lean more towards plain ol' capitalism as the reason for small market players going under He seems to point pretty directly to Chinese subsidies allowing those printers to be sold under cost. That’s not capitalism.
The free-market folks talk about something that works in theory as an ideal, but has never actually been put into practice.
If you are a hobbyist or small business in desktop manufacturing you are basically forced to buy Chinese products. I have never owned a Prusa, but I have owned several Creality and Bambu Labs printers, because I could get the same utility at half the cost. The same goes for soldering irons, linear actuators, oscillscopes, etc. I still buy European hand tools (Knipex, Wera, etc) because I know they won't break in a ye…
Chinese stuff these days has pulled far ahead of the Harbor Freight reputation of my youth. I can't remember the last time I've seen a proper "Engrish" instruction manual, most of the things are well designed and well built. Meanwhile, the "good old American brands" seem to just be selling out for cheaper and better profit margin products, so you'll be ending up with Chinese stuff anyways, which is sometimes worse th…
As a hardware guy, and someone who loves coming up with fun product ideas, China is the ASI LLM of the hardware world. Like don't even bother trying to compete, they are faster, cheaper, have better yield, and don't really need to be profitable. Imagine what the software industry would look like if an LLM could look at any completed software product, and a few weeks to a month later have made a perfect copy of it. It…