“Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
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Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#2Being able to "lose" 15 pieces out of each set without incurring any penalty sounds like a great way to grow the home lego collection. The Pley membership cost isn't cheap but neither are new lego sets.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#3I told my kids about this. They were like "how is that like Netflix?" I realized to them, Netflix is a company that streams video to you. They don't remember a time we used Netflix to get DVDs in the mail.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#4Being lego, this actually solves a lot of my immediate worries:
Sets can be weighed back in. Missing pieces are held in stock and can easily be replaced.
Lego can go into a washing machine/steriliser.
It is light and virtually impossible to damage in transit (assuming they devise good packaging)
There is minimal depreciation, and demand for new sets won't be absurd. (vs textbooks and general toys)
You have to work hard to hurt yourself with faulty lego.
The only problem I see is (for my family at least) Lego was faddish. We didn't touch it for months, then couldn't get enough of it for three weeks. This is a difficulty for a subscription model.
Overall this is an excellent idea.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#5I feel this takes away a lot of the fun. There won't be mixing and matching of sets and peices; no experimenting nor creating new things. Partially because it won't be allowed (what parent will want to re-sort the sets), but mostly because it's impossible (you only get one set at a time).
Legos were awesome because you could experiment and build and create new things. Now, they're just a paint-by-numbers, follow the instructions, build something Hollywood designed type toy.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#6This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think.
I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough.
I've long had a theory that Lego is vulnerable to 3d printers in exactly the same way as Polaroid was to digital cameras. Polaroid also seemed on top of the world for a while, but they clung to their model too long and it was too late.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#71. The plural of Lego is Lego.
2. You get a set with 1273 pieces. You find out there are only 1265 pieces. There is great sadness.
3. When you combine Yellow Tiger and Red Tiger and all their friends you get Voltron. You can play with friends and share, at the end of the day you uncombine and you each have a tiger. Much fun is had. With Lego if you combine Lord of the Rings and Spiderman much fun is had. When you try to uncombine you end up with a lot more red and blue in middle earth than there used to be.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#8I feel this takes away a lot of the fun. There won't be mixing and matching of sets and peices; no experimenting nor creating new things. Partially because it won't be allowed (what parent will want to re-sort the sets), but mostly because it's impossible (you only get one set at a time). Legos were awesome because you could experiment and build and create new things. Now, they're just a paint-by-numbers, follow the…
You can still buy a 'bucket' of random bricks. For various reasons, those probably generate less revenue than sponsored sets. ex: marvel, starwars themed legos
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#9This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think. I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough. I've l…
Sure you can print interlocking bricks with a 3D printer, but there are some problems to solve if you want to even approach the quality of legos. The lego interlocking bump mechanism alone is a precision interface which requires tight tolerances and a controlled surface finish, both of which are currently impossible to match with 3D printing technology. The outside dimensions of the parts are quite important as well, particularly the vertical dimension: deviations run-to-run and-part-to-part will give you trouble with accumulating height offset errors in stacks of bricks. Where bricks should match up, they may not.
Re: “Netflix for Legos” is an awesome idea. But can it scale?
#10This is kind of off-topic, but still kind of relevant I think. I think the 'killer' for Lego is going to eventually be 3d printers. A subscription service for lego sounds cool and all, but I'd rather be printing exactly the pieces I want (or going to a local vendor using a fancier 3d printer to make them). I kind of see this toy angle being the first probably breakthrough for it once the tech gets good enough. I've l…
Sure you can print interlocking bricks with a 3D printer, but there are some problems to solve if you want to even approach the quality of legos. The lego interlocking bump mechanism alone is a precision interface which requires tight tolerances and a controlled surface finish, both of which are currently impossible to match with 3D printing technology. The outside dimensions of the parts are quite important as well,…
You may note I did not say it's possible now, but it would be absurd to think that it won't at some point in the future. You could have said the same about early digital cameras, which produced incredibly shitty pictures compared to even a polaroid. And that even when polaroid began to get utterly destroyed by digital cameras they still weren't really up to snuff, other factors overrode their low quality.
And if Lego wants to survive it when it does come, imo they should be thinking about this now.