Remaking MakerBot | Hacker News Reader

Remaking MakerBot

motherboard.vice.com

22 pointsSplendor10 comments

> “I’ll be sitting at home. Maybe something broke; maybe my glasses.” He grabs the sunglasses on his desk, continues, “maybe I want to reprint it and I’ll go to Oakley, Ray Ban, whatever, Philippe Starck in this case, download the file, pay $3.49 for it, and print it at home. And then you will have to go to your Kinko’s or your Fab Labs, your local 3D printing, if you want it in metal or plastics you can’t have at home.”

Why would Oakley, Ray Ban, or Philippe Starck sell the design to their glasses for $3.49 when they can sell you the replacement pieces for three times more [1], or better yet sell you a replacement pair of glasses?

[1] http://www.oakley.com/en/mens/sunglasses/replacement-parts/c...

This quote was one of a few, which made it sound like this guy doesn't get MakerBot/ed printers anymore than any of the other, clueless executives, but when your father is the chairman of the corporation...

> Why would Oakley, Ray Ban, or Philippe Starck sell the design to their glasses for $3.49 when they can sell you the replacement pieces for three times more [1], or better yet sell you a replacement pair of glasses?

Because you want a poorly finished piece that takes multiple tries to print right because the extruder jams, piece warps, or a misaligned head crashes into the object turning everything into a goopy mess?

The occasional time my Replicator 1 works on the first try, it's magical. Most of the time it's an exercise in frustration.

Well, I'm sure most record labels would rather sell you a DRM'd CD than an iTunes download.

But because of the way the market is, they have no choice in the matter.

You also might forget that $3.49 of pure profit may beat the eventual per-unit margin of even high priced replacements, which require warehousing, retailing, restocking, shipping, etc etc.

I'm a little confused why this 2,000-word article didn't even mention the open-source community backlash against MakerBot.

It reads like a lightly-edited press release. By far the biggest mis-step in the company's history and not a word.

I'd say the biggest misstep was the swelling of Bre Pettis' ego and subsequent firing of all of the original employees, including his own father, but the open source screwjob would be a close second.

The biggest misstep is the unusable 5th gen.

I'm not confused as to why, but there is pretty good summaries out there: http://josefprusa.cz/open-hardware-meaning/ - all comes down to trying to market to, and mangle the definition of open source hardware IMHO.

OT: Does anyone have information about the modular desk in the second picture? Any pointer would be appreciated.

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