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Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

josefprusa.com

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Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#211

Post by e40 »

klntsky wrote: post #19
simpaticoder wrote: post #11

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…

That would bring down the price of patent spam even more. The problem is the cost of protection relative to the cost of attack, you can't do much.

Correct, bad actors would use this.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#212

Post by Workaccount2 »

kennywinker wrote: post #179
Workaccount2 wrote: post #60

China, being a planned economy at heart, has a "VC" system that is essentially just the government deciding what needs to be developed, and then Chinese banks lending without any practical strings to those developers. Profit and loss, ROI, business plan, aren't really factored in. China wants to develop AI? You have some experience and want to start an AI business? Great! Here is a few million go make AI. This is the…

> Great! Here is a few million go make AI. So how is this different from the US? It’s VC’s making the choices not the gov - seems little different. Maybe scale? > They're not unfamiliar with burning tens of billions to get a few hundred million of value. The chinese economy seems like proof this is a valid strategy that pays off in aggregate. Yet when gov here attempts any kind of economic development policy it seems…

VC's gauge what the market wants, the Chinese government is one person who decides what he wants.

One of these is grossly inefficient compared to the other, despite the final outcome looking similar from some angles.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#213

Post by cluckindan »

tempest_ wrote: post #123
Workaccount2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese stuff is now more often than not better. You cannot be the world's manufacturer for 30 years and not get good at making stuff.

I always think it is amusing that some people make the mistake of thinking that the Chinese can only make cheap crap(forgetting all their cell phones and apple laptops come from there). The American market only wants to buy cheap crap so that is what is made and sent. Usually though the skills involved in making something cut-rate are just as applicable to making something top notch. American manufacturing skills hav…

Maybe America needs a planned economy and minority ”re-education” camps to boost production.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#214

Post by jonbiggums22 »

schrijver wrote: post #89
conorbergin wrote: post #44

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…

Hobbyists aren’t forced to buy anything.. I blame youtube for turning hobbies into an exercise at buying stuff. Affiliate links are one of the few ways to make money online and the reason why the majority of videos in the hobby space seem to be gear reviews. Yet as a hobbyist chances are you won’t practice enough to outgrow your tools anyway, and neither do you have the economic incentives of business owners.

Youtube may have exasperated the situation, but gear obsession in hobbies certainly predates even the internet, much less youtube. It seems kind of natural, mastering your tools takes time and maybe talent. Buying them just takes money.

I remember the original Dawn of the Dead poking fun at it when they raid the gun store in the mall:

Peter: Ain't it a crime.

Stephen: What?

Peter: The only person who could miss with this gun is the sucker with the bread to buy it.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#215

Post by logicchains »

jandrese wrote: post #200
izacus wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more I look into it, the more I'm convinced that current state of IP law is the rot at the core of western worlds technological stagnation. The rise of monopolistic megacorps, lack of independent innovation and enshittifcation can pretty much be traced back to the wide free market violating reach of current IP law. This article just highlights it and shows how China weaponized this weakness of the west and is suc…

It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation. I'm not sure what the correct solution is to this problem. We want to avoid anything that causes a return of the guild system, but at the same time we don't want small inventors steamrolled by l…

>It's telling that before the Patent system the solution was secretive guilds that jealously (sometimes lethally) guarded their secrets to avoid competition. This was obviously terrible since it greatly slowed down innovation.

Nowadays HFT technology is extremely competitive, with firms investing tens of millions in custom harder to achieve nanosecond latency improvements, but all this has happened entirely without patents. As an industry HFT is way less monopolised than tech, suggesting trade secrets alone are enough to achieve growth and competition.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#216

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

hyperbovine wrote: post #126
Workaccount2 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese stuff is now more often than not better. You cannot be the world's manufacturer for 30 years and not get good at making stuff.

It's the exact same thing that happened with Japanese cars. Believe it or not, Japanese autos used to be considered cheap junk in the 70s and early 80s.

Same thing with Germany in the 19th century: "inferior copies of English designs". Those who don't know history will be forced to repeat past mistakes.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#217

Post by andrewmcwatters »

AlexandrB wrote: post #104
simpaticoder wrote: post #11

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…

IP is just too strong. The terms are ridiculously long (especially for copyright), there are multiple workarounds for "fair use", such as DMCA, and patents on simple concepts like linked lists are not laughed out of the room. All of this stuff needs to be weakened (and shortened). Part of the reason Chinese companies are able to iterate quickly on technology like 3d printers or drones is that it's possible to simply…

To be fair, in the States, you can own a small business, come up with a good idea, and someone can just copy it and compete against you regardless if it's copyright infringement or not. And that's in the context of a domestic legal issue.

You have to be able to defend your intellectual property, and that's expensive, which is the parent comment's point.

I mean, imagine you, AlexandrB, come up with some good idea, start working on the implementation and delivery of that good or service, and someone just... copies it. Or copies it and releases it for free.

Should... we just not care about that? Because the idea of not having any intellectual property protections whatsoever is even more absurd than having them.

It requires incredible, statistically insurmountable effort, attention, and revenue to create even a two-person, full-time, sustainable business. More so in software and hardware where everyone is releasing open source software, everyone wants everything to be free, no one wants to pay for anything, and hardware designs are regularly stolen.

Forget that dude, you can make more money selling lemonade in your neighborhood.

A kid selling candy bars for school fundraisers has a better chance than someone creating a product in our field and taking it to market.

No, we definitely need intellectual property protection and it should be essentially free to defend yourself as an individual or small business.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#218

Post by tw04 »

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

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…

>Given the advent of computers, the internet, video conferencing, it is outrageous how much of the current system requires physical paper, physical presence in a courtroom. It is outrageous how the slowness and cost of the system itself is used by the wealthy to bully the poor.

You're leaving out the part that there are a limited number of judges, and to be a good judge requires a LOT of education, a LOT of experience, and a LOT of time (in other words it's expensive to become a good judge and they need to be compensated to reflect the cost of becoming one).

Computers and Zoom don't change the fact our options are either: Put thousands of new unqualified people into positions of power (judges) Or continue with the current system where getting into a court is slow and expensive.

Unless you're planning on building an entirely new court system removed from the current one specifically for IP. To which I say: good luck, because it'll be a massive expansion of government that doesn't include lining the pockets of our current little dictator or his supporters so we'll hear about how we need to shrink government and reduce the debt.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#219

Post by bluGill »

balfirevic wrote: post #115
bluGill wrote: post #16

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…

> Many plastic parts makers are making would be better as metal done on lathes and milling machines I'd love to, but I'm not getting those into my apartment.

The hobby sized machines would fit into your apartment. Sure I can do things on my big machines that you couldn't, but there are plenty of things my south bend heavy 10 cannot do.

Re: Open hardware desktop 3D printing is dead?

#220

Post by londons_explore »

simpaticoder wrote: post #11

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…

Time limits on cases would really help.

Ie. Each side has 15 minutes to explain their side, then the jury has 15 minutes to discuss, then a vote is taken and a decision made.

Sure, some more subtle outcomes would be 'wrong' - but does it actually matter?

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