10 min read.
My salty reply to 3D Hubs on their recent move to cut the Makers off their platform....
Come join the discussion here: https://discord.gg/XEkqCG
Open Source and the Makers: An anarchic community of weirdos and creative people.
I am a proud member of it.
It needs to stay weird! For one, only this environment lets you try new things. Maybe even gives you the courage to try new things. Because if your project fails, who cares? But secondly it needs to stay weird to scare away all the "normies" and their standard behavior and their comments of misunderstanding.
I am throwing open source and Makers in one pot here, because for one it is often the same people and second it is the same mindset of: Try new things. Make sth useful or just weird, but then share it with everyone.
A good example are the star wars fans. The goal is for example to have the "best" costume and look like a storm trooper.
Usually there is no interest in earning profit from the project. A simple: "wow, cool!" from the other weirdos... ehm.. i mean makers is usually enough. Or even better: " Why dont you try to add ..."
So there is also no holding back in jumping into someone elses project. Adding stuff, changing stuff. And maybe even copying the entire project and try on your own. The "original" maker usually would react with: "cool! People like my stuff so much, they wanna try it themselves."
3D Hubs are acting like it is their platform and they build everything. Just like so many before, they build on top of the maker community and took all their contributions for granted in the end.
One recent example in the same space: Makerbot.
They started working with the maker community. Had a nice product, that needs tweeking, but that was the fun part of it. Plug and play is for normies. My replicator 2 is still up and running fine. I am changing parts of it how i like.
Then they joined Stratasys and changed their products and behavior completely.
It is all about making more profit.
But they forgot about their customers - the makers.
Do you know anyone that owns one of the newer models? - no? exactly.
They killed the "cheaper" Makerbot product line, so they can sell more "expensive" printers of their old professional line.
I am putting it in brakets, because of course the competition did not sleep.
Let me also give one positive example here: RepRep
The original Open source 3D printer. It is also a company which is producing and selling the parts for it. - Or used to be.
They started this field, this new market and made themselves obsolete when the competition was too intense.
But they did not seem sad about the end of RepRep. They seem proud of achieving their mission of: Making 3D printing accessible for everyone.
Ok, now to the probably most famous and "successful" example of building on top of the open source community and then cutting all strings: Microsoft.
The first Windows version was build on top of open source code. What Bill Gates changed, was that he made it closed source and build a business on top of it.
Well he was quite successful with this. But funny enough the "new" open source software, linux, is beating windows by far in any technical aspect. Microsoft is just using its quasi Monopoly now to force everyone to use their stuff.
So last but not least to the current example of Maker betrayal: 3DHubs
Yes you legally own the platform. Yes.
Yes you legally own the information on it. Yes.
But what is it made of? Where did it come from?
From people from within 3DHubs? or from the community. You better think about it.
- The Printer guide - Many times probably the most shared document in the 3d printing space and best source, if you are thinking of buying a new printer.
- The Handbook - the newest guide for new or old members to find their way through the technologies.
- so many pages of information on 3D Hubs
.....all made possible through the information the Hub owners were providing.... for free
Of course 3D Hubs is just a platform to connect makers and hubs for 3d printing services. What actually makes 3D Hubs think, they can do it without the hub owners?
The idea is also not new. For example many use shapeways to print parts. But does 3D hubs own their own printers? i dont think so.
Maybe those few selected hubs that actually made it through this selection process and qualify for "fullfilled by 3DHubs" are happy about some more orders now.
But in the long run. Who will take care of those unprintable orders at 3am in the morning for 5 bucks a print?
Only the hubowners know how much work went into the projects unpaid...
And i am sure those same customers, cannot or will not pay for those services if they would have to.
Yes there are more professional orders now.. so they claim.... but soon that will decline also, because the companies that actually can afford the "real" price for 3d printing, have no problem to just buy a printer themselves.
For those companies, the intellectual property is much more important. We are talking about prototypes after all.
Also dont forget the great overlap of Makers and professionals, or Makers that evolved to proffesionals. Do you think they will appreciate, they cannot talk to their favorite hub any more?
3D Hubs made a bold decision, to grow their business. So i guess the Makers have to find a new place. Because that is what we do, after all: We build new stuff.
....so if you are interested in building a new open source kind of Maker space online. Come join the discussion here:
https://discord.gg/XEkqCG
(There is also a Map with Hubs. Come and put you needle on the map, too)