So, FDM is only for "low accuracy prototypes"?

[jminer85]

like I said I have 2 idle printer not making cash. I don’t turn down sales unless the customer and I agree a different printer is needed to get the results they require.

[Steelmans]

They can send some of those orders to me!!! Please!!!

[Perry_1]

Yes, this is really disgusting.

Why use a term like disgusting? Because if they just spent a little development time on the right stuff, and asked their base for help, we could tell them how to do better with their goals. Instead, they secretly institute a policy of taking our customers from us, AT THE SAME TIME they implement a returning customer ranking change.

[adamhayek]

That is not correct. We changed how we weight the reasons for rejecting an order, that caused the drop. The graph is a representation of how your accept rate based on these weights. We should definitely clarify that in the description.

Adam, 3D Hubs

[Perry_1]

Good. Thanks. I was worried hubs were doing things they shouldn’t. This is a pretty big issue. I have been on the phone and via email with several hubs the last few days. They are quite upset. The drop in accepts (at least how I read it) worried me that people were protesting.

Some have suggested this, and I think discussion is best.

[Perry_1]

Also, good to know some other folks from 3dhubs are following this. Maybe we can get some results!

[Perry_1]

Day 7. On day 6, no response from 3dhubs at all in this thread on this abomination. They do not understand the depth and breadth of what they have done, and how it affects our marketplace, not just on 3dhubs, but with all or our customers. They are vastly underestimating the anger out here.
They continue attempt to redefine FDM printing as low quality prototyping. They continue to have contempt for those hubs who have spoken up here, by ignoring responses and answering questions incompletely or with pure misdirection.

I encourage all hubs who are aware of this, (which is not very many, because most hubs don’t read talk or have tried to create an order…) to PLEASE continue to discuss this here. It is important that 3dhubs is aware of the issue. Also, they are probably praying for this hub to slip past the front page or TALK.

[Perry_1]

EDITED: I had posted that it appeared that declines were on the rise, based on data that 3dhubs shares with us. I was worried folks were dropping orders in protest, but they said that this was not the case, and it appears with my own tests that this is true, so I removed the post. (people were asking why I deleted the post)

[Perry_1]

Here is what happened. In lieu of responses from 3dhubs, I will speak for them. I will speak for them every day that they do not participate.

A. Last year, 3dhubs received $7 million US in series B funding. This was presented as an investment that would allow funding for 3dhubs to pay for a greater focus on professional type printers. https://www.startupdelta.org/news/3D-Hubs-secures-7M-series-B-round-to-focus-on-professional-users

B. 3dhubs posts on TALK a request for help in defining guidelines for “customer expectations” for FDM. They ignore hubs that say that is a bad idea. This was actually step 1 in their SECRET plan to denigrate FDM.

C. 3dhubs adds a dialogue when customers put up a model, with a dialogue that says “can we help you choose a material?” which pushes customers to SLS or SLA. Including our customers, our repeat customers, and customers that come from our own websites.

D. 3dhubs adds a “Disclaimer” for those who choose FDM, stating that the prints are not smooth, within tolerances, etc. They are then guided to SLS or SLA. Again, this includes our customers, our repeat customers, and customers that come from our own website.

E. 3dhubs changes the description of FDM to “Protoyping”. All the descriptions for other methods are given better wording, FDM is given negative wording.
F. 3dhubs changes the materials descriptions the customer chooses from “General Purpose Plastics” to Prototyping Plastics.
G. 3dhubs adds a dialogue that appears just before the customer completes the order with a “Disclaimer” that warns the customer that FDM is not the best way to go, and includes links that lets the customer choose SLS or SLA. This outright steals the customer from the FDM hub, and moves the customer to an SLS or SLA hub. This is true for our customers, our repeat customers, customers that we brought to 3dhubs on our own, and customers that arrive via our own websites or Facebook pages.
H. This was done in secret, with no input from the FDM hubs, no warning, and no notice on the changelog. 3dhubs says this is just a test, but we believe it is already a permanent change.
I. After 6 days of input, on day 6 3dhubs fails to respond to any messages, including those who have stated that their orders have declined. Active hubs have shown a direct loss of orders, but 3dhubs ignored the them.

[Perry_1]

Analog “Benchy”.

[AlltechM]

Totally agree with this post. 3DHUBS is now branding FDM as non desirable. Not sure what kinds of profits they’ll see from this, but i guess they’re out to rid themselves of the “little guys.” And orders are now nill since this happened.

[Perry_1]

ANOTHER HUB who has lost business as a result of being called a “Protoype Hub with low tolerances and prototype quality materials?” shocking! That’s about 8 or something for the number of hubs who have checked in with lower orders. And since TALK is read by a very few of us, it would seem that we are hearing from very few of the entire represented data here. Many hubs are probably losing customers without being aware of it.

-------------------------

Why would your orders go down? Well, lets look at your hub, which I will rank on a scale of 1-5.

Quality of prints: 10. Your photos of your prints are excellent. In fact, some of your prints are better than I have seen from some HQ hubs.

Tolerances 10. Can measure that, but your stepper motor holder sure looks like it fits PERFECTLY.

Hub Quality 10. Great presentation, description, etc.

Reviews 10. Appears to be a perfect score. Reviews like “Very knowledgeable with CAD, 3D printing techniques/strategy. Provided recommendations to improve quality, even fixed a problem with STL file” “If I could give 6 stars …” Great communication and customer service " “Pierre made special adjustments to his equipment in order to print my parts with the best quality.”
I also see you print 2 ft x 3ft with your FDM printer. AND you deliver, do cad design.
------------- I can see no reason why your orders would have dropped of -------------------

Or perhaps the customers came to your site and found that you do prototyping materials, and went to a different hub.

Or perhaps the customers came to you and was shown a “can i help you choose a material” which aims your customer at a different hub, and thus went to a different hub.

Or perhaps it was the “Disclaimer” that warns the customer that FDM is not a good print quality.

Or perhaps the customers got the point of placing the order, and was told they should “consider a different material” which directs them to SLA and SLA and went to a different hub.
Or perhaps the customer saw that 3dhubs does low quality prototypes in prototyping material, and went completely to a different 3d printing site all together.
Or perhaps the customer saw that 3dhubs does low quality prototypes, and went to an FDM printer farm.

[Perry_1]

I see that 3dhubs on FRIDAY was so interested in this issue that they failed to respond in any meaningful way to our issues here. As I said from the first day, this is now policy. They are ignoring us. This does not bode well for the future of 3dhubs as a reliable company with which to list our printers.
------------
Here is what happened. In lieu of responses from 3dhubs, I will speak for them. I will speak for them every day that they do not participate.
A. Last year, 3dhubs received $7 million US in series B funding. This was presented as an investment that would allow funding for 3dhubs to pay for a greater focus on professional type printers. https://www.startupdelta.org/news/3D-Hubs-secures-7M-series-B-round-to-f…
B. 3dhubs posts on TALK a request for help in defining guidelines for “customer expectations” for FDM. They ignore hubs that say that is a bad idea. This was actually step 1 in their SECRET plan to denigrate FDM.
C. 3dhubs adds a dialogue when customers put up a model, with a dialogue that says “can we help you choose a material?” which pushes customers to SLS or SLA. Including our customers, our repeat customers, and customers that come from our own websites.
D. 3dhubs adds a “Disclaimer” for those who choose FDM, stating that the prints are not smooth, within tolerances, etc. They are then guided to SLS or SLA. Again, this includes our customers, our repeat customers, and customers that come from our own website.
E. 3dhubs changes the description of FDM to “Protoyping”. All the descriptions for other methods are given better wording, FDM is given negative wording.
F. 3dhubs changes the materials descriptions the customer chooses from “General Purpose Plastics” to Prototyping Plastics.
G. 3dhubs adds a dialogue that appears just before the customer completes the order with a “Disclaimer” that warns the customer that FDM is not the best way to go, and includes links that lets the customer choose SLS or SLA. This outright steals the customer from the FDM hub, and moves the customer to an SLS or SLA hub. This is true for our customers, our repeat customers, customers that we brought to 3dhubs on our own, and customers that arrive via our own websites or Facebook pages.
H. This was done in secret, with no input from the FDM hubs, no warning, and no notice on the changelog. 3dhubs says this is just a test, but we believe it is already a permanent change.
I. After 7 days of input, on day 6 AND ON DAY 7 3dhubs fails to respond to any messages, including those who have stated that their orders have declined. Active hubs have shown a direct loss of orders, but 3dhubs ignored the them.

[Perry_1]

Be very clear here. AFTER a customer, including YOUR CUSTOMERS, choose your hub, 3dhubs tries to move them to a different hub!
Day 7. No response on day 6 or day 7.

“3D Hubs: democratizing 3D printing”

[Steelmans]

Well that was the quietest 3D Hubs weekend ever!!! Just one enquiry from an existing customer and 3 printers getting cold.

I used to look forward to the weekend orders but looks like someone else is getting them now. This has to be the “prototyping” thing and negativity in the description. 3D Hubs have really screwed us FDM hubs.

[Steelmans]

@Filemon Could you also let me know why when a customer is searching for hubs from Leicester they get hubs from other parts of the UK and even one from Belgium?

Position 4 is a hub from London which is 140km away

Position 9 is a hub from BELGIUM which is another country 370km away!!!

Also I just noticed my listing says I respond in 13m on average but my dashboard says that both my accept/decline time and order comment times are 2m. Is it me or is this full of errors?

I’m starting to lose confidence that 3D Hubs will be great again.

[Perry_1]

This is ridiculous on so many levels. Not sure how 3dhubs could have screwed this up worse.

I find it hard to believe that so many of those customers went on to print at SLA or SLP printers. I think it is likely they were simply scared off 3dhubs by the new wording, and either decided not to part with their money for what was perceived as low quality, or that they looked around and found some non-3dhub site with a better description of FDM to place the orders.

3dhubs has gone into hiding on this issue.

[Steelmans]

No doubt, 3D Hubs will come back with some figures to show that order levels were unchanged. This is a nightmare for me and they don’t seem to care.

If they continue to push customers away from FDM, I imagine the result will be a competing website full of FDM printers.

[Steelmans]

@Filemon @Perry_1 Whilst we are going though all the anti FDM processes on here I thought I’d go through the material selector wizard to show how difficult it is to get an FDM result. I will post a tree displaying the results when I get chance but in the meantime check out the attachment. For my first try I thought I would try one that MUST be FDM…

I selected "Function, then “Form and fit”, then for accuracy chose “LOW” (this must be rough arsed FDM right?)… then the result still gives one last ditch effort to take you to SLS!!! WOW, just WOW!

[Perry_1]

Yes, I have been saying this for a week. This is my repeat customer getting that dialogue “can I help you choose a material”.
Then everything there has the solid intent of harvesting my customer…

Its not JUST that the subjective terminology is bad, its that it was shown automatically to a customer I earned. Repeat customer, customer from facebook, customer from my business card, customer from my ads…

The statement that customers only choose FDM because of price is my favorite.
Plus, the material selector is so subjective. Just what does form and fit mean, anyway? Where are the advantages of FDM listed?
The whole massive thing was done with the sole intent of moving customers from FDM to higher $.

They will say they are focusing on a more “professional” market now. That’s what Makerbot said just before they lost their market.
But focusing on professional customers translates to “lets take FDM customers and try to convince them to spend more money.” That is not focusing on professional customers. That’s harvesting already happy FDM customers.

Instead of going for the positive, they reversed it. They went negative.

I am not sure I can find a case where a company cannibalized their vendors and their end customers so harshly.