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What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

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Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#81

Post by bane »

bborud wrote: post #79
bane wrote: post #63

I'm pretty tech savvy, and I honestly can't find a reason, other than tinkering, to buy a 3d printer. In almost every case, the thing the printer would be making for me, at huge effort in time and materials, is solvable with a cheap, sub-$1 Chinese made part or some other more convenient alternative. The lack of real use-case is what's killing consumer-level 3d printers. Most people just don't need to run off a coupl…

If I had been born 10-15 years later I might have held that opinion too. But I was born in the early 1970s and I have seen computers, mobile phones, Internet and a few other things go from not being a clear consumer product to where the consumer sector completely dwarfs the corporate sector. I'm not really disagreeing with you: right now it doesn't feel like 3D printers are a typical consumer item. But experience tel…

Well, I absolutely believe a 3d printer should find a home in tinkerer's workshops. It seems like it would yet another tool for building or crafting things. But I think the market for them is vastly overstated. Opening a dedicated store for the devices seems like opening a store dedicated to selling nothing but a couple tiers of tablesaws.

Hardware stores sell all kinds of DIY equipment, it seems to me that this is where they probably ultimately need to be channeled through.

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#82

Post by chrisbennet »

justifier wrote: post #70
bane wrote: post #63

I'm pretty tech savvy, and I honestly can't find a reason, other than tinkering, to buy a 3d printer. In almost every case, the thing the printer would be making for me, at huge effort in time and materials, is solvable with a cheap, sub-$1 Chinese made part or some other more convenient alternative. The lack of real use-case is what's killing consumer-level 3d printers. Most people just don't need to run off a coupl…

just this week: (i) an arm on my glasses broke, i went to the shop i bought the glasses from, for 400$, and their suggestion? buy a new pair and my prescription has expired since the last time so i will need to have an eye exam for another 200$ (ii) the little plastic latch on my girlfriend's bike helmet broke in half, it still latches but can pop free with enough pressure (iii) the clip on my compass broke so now i…

The thing is, the parts you can make with 3D printers would be too weak for most things on your list.

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#83

Post by tonyarkles »

justifier wrote: post #66
Animats wrote: post #18

The MakerBot's problem is simply that low-end extruder-type 3D printers don't work very well.[1] They're easy to make, so there are lots of variations on that theme. TechShop has, over time, had one or two of all the major flavors. They're useful for making relatively thin parts, but anything taller than 3cm or so usually founders on the basic fact that ABS has too big of a coefficient of expansion to build something…

i am always amazed at how 3d printer articles brought to the forefront of this aggregator rarely, if ever, talk about the peachy printer in considering lowering costs i suppose the question is who is assessing these costs: an individual, or a company form1 is interesting but at 3.3k that is quite expensive for an individual there is an effort for a 100$ stereolithographic printer called the peachy printer comparing s…

I'm guessing no one talks about it in when articles like this show up because... well.. no one's really used one yet. I've spent the weekend hand-assembling what is hopefully the final prototype rev of the PCB though, and hopefully they end up in peoples hands soon.

I don't speak for my employer at all, but I'm pretty excited that they should be out in the wild Really Soon(tm).

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#85

Post by fit2rule »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #53
fit2rule wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a natural consequence of having contributed to a society where China does all the work, anyway. Either beat China at the manufacturing game, or continually be side-swiped by Chinese manufacturers. Alas, no amount of open source anything is going to assist with that challenge ..

Don't try to beat China at manufacturing. That's a fool's errand for nearly everyone. Let them make most of the things. Concentrate on quality and whatever your core business is.

I believe an emerging ethos indeed is that you must 'beat China' at its own game by simply, building local - i.e. do the global warming thing, and turn off the boats. The planes. &etc.

And instead build more robots. Local robots. Robots that build other robots, and .. things.

It is an emerging ethos, the local DIY-industrialist; actually a catch-up of the spirit that made China such cheap prowess in the first place, but when it happens as a Western phenomenon - i.e. local all the things. - it will indeed mean less cheap plastic crap floating around the ecosphere.

At least one can hope. An energy revolution and 3d-printing/transposing tech need not always start with a Fedex delivery. ("Solve global warming: stop using Fedex!")

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#86

Post by bborud »

bane wrote: post #81
bborud wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had been born 10-15 years later I might have held that opinion too. But I was born in the early 1970s and I have seen computers, mobile phones, Internet and a few other things go from not being a clear consumer product to where the consumer sector completely dwarfs the corporate sector. I'm not really disagreeing with you: right now it doesn't feel like 3D printers are a typical consumer item. But experience tel…

Well, I absolutely believe a 3d printer should find a home in tinkerer's workshops. It seems like it would yet another tool for building or crafting things. But I think the market for them is vastly overstated. Opening a dedicated store for the devices seems like opening a store dedicated to selling nothing but a couple tiers of tablesaws. Hardware stores sell all kinds of DIY equipment, it seems to me that this is w…

Yeah, I think you are probably right about 3D printers being just another tool found at hardware stores.

Something that is a bit sad right now is that the printers you get from traditional retail stores are mostly the bad ones.

When I saw Makerbot make it onto the shelves in hardware stores I was a bit sad because I knew that this will lead to disappointment. I have seen a few other "brand" 3D printers which are not very good (and which try to develop a razor blade business model) as well.

I would also agree that they are a bit over-hyped. Just like home computers in the early 80s. And that there will probably be a backlash when people conclude that the Makerbots and the Dremels and the whatnots are really terrible products.

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#87

Post by devopsproject »

blhack wrote: post #29

Makerbot is doomed because not only will nobody in the hobbyist market buy their printers anymore, but when the people who are in the hobbyist market get asked about what printer to buy, the will recommend against makerbot (well, more specifically against Bre Pettis).

We just bought a 3d printer and noticed this. There were so many negative comments about makerbot

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#88

Post by jjwiseman »

steve19 wrote: post #26
jjwiseman wrote: post #19

I'm curious to see how 3D Robotics handles a similar situation. Their drone platform has been open source hardware plus open source software. There are Chinese companies cloning the hardware and selling it for much cheaper than 3D Robotics sells it for. 3D Robotics just raised $50M in a series C. It will be interesting to see how their commitment to openness holds up.

3D Robotics only open source the flight controller hardware and software and ground control software. delivering a safe drone platform requires a lot more hardware (the aircraft itself, camera and radio gear) and firmware (camera, gimbal, speed controller radio gear).

My guess, though, is that as the industry matures, low-level components like ESC & radio firmwares are not really going to be where most value gets added. Software is definitely going to eat the drone world, and it's going to be at the higher levels: First it will be flight software with amazing new features (VSLAM, sense and avoid, swarm control) and then once that's more mature, it will be the operations-level super-ground-control-system stuff.

Re: What doomed MakerBot? The Osborne effect

#89

Post by Swannie »

bborud wrote: post #67
Animats wrote: post #18

The MakerBot's problem is simply that low-end extruder-type 3D printers don't work very well.[1] They're easy to make, so there are lots of variations on that theme. TechShop has, over time, had one or two of all the major flavors. They're useful for making relatively thin parts, but anything taller than 3cm or so usually founders on the basic fact that ABS has too big of a coefficient of expansion to build something…

No, that is not Makerbot Industries' problem. They have problems at two levels. At one level is that their management isn't very nice and thus the internal culture appears to be very strained. At least if you read the comments from about 50-60 former and current employees on one of those "employee satisfaction" websites whose name escapes me at the moment (Glass Door?). They went from a very open company embracing op…

Mhh. I was never very impressed.

It started when they initially refused to credit RepRap with all the open-source stuff they included in MakerBot. They then proceeded to bury the credit when they finally gave it.

They claimed they were putting a lot of unique IP in, but realistically in v1 it was just a different case.

Ultimately MakerBot tried to cash in on a trend, by taking a lot of open source design and building a product around it - but failing to do so in a open friendly fashion, and not understanding how to do product management.

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