Yes, @Enza3D, I know you were not calling my printers $200 printers. And you know my modified printers, if you have seen them on all the other forums, are definitely not $200 printers.
To your other point, I have many repeat customers, and more than once I have said “Well, you’ve printed enough to buy a good solid printer” and they always say “not for me, I just want the parts.” A 3d printer is a pain in the butt. They don’t want to get married, they just want a part.
On the other hand, I just spent all day (which is why it took me so long to respond today) with a fortune 100 company, where they are installing $100,000+ printers. See, they have software people, CAD designers, etc. They are the ones that don’t need 3dhubs. They are the ones who will buy their own printers. Small and medium size businesses, who are very price conscious are the ones who do not have the correct geography for dealing with what it takes to get and keep getting 3d prints. These are my guys. They order end user items from me, and yes, sometimes, prototypes. And you keep mentioning injection molding. Many folks order FDM prior to putting their models to the molds. They do not need the in between SLA prints.
A $200 printer is not a good printer. I have seen your reviews, and your prints online. You are also not doing that with a $200.00 printer, lol. I also went through your prints, and see very few FDM PROTOTYPES in those pictures. I am starting to wonder if 3dhubs even knows the meaning of the word prototype. They definitely do not understand the stigma, and refuse to listen.
To your second point that “Looking for new user bases is a very important part of growth, as you know, but it can’t be done at the cost of the original base and the Hubs themselves”:
They don’t even know who we are. I have been 3dprinting for people as side income long before I signed up on 3dhubs. I built my first 3dprinter before Makerbot had a cupcake kit and I started selling prints. I have a lot of customers. I also am on other sites besides 3dhubs that do 3d printing, but 3dhubs has always been my home. Because they offer great software, great support, and never tried to get between me and my customers. They did the job of their manifesto discussed. This is changing.
I am pretty well known in this area, set up printers with makerspaces, given talks, helped schools, etc. I am the most prolific author on the 3dhubs knowledge base. (They took the photos. No, my prints are not that bad.) I always have had 3dhubs on my business cards. I put up posters, at my own costs, at several universities. These did not have my specific hub on it. I was just all into it. I even took some of my own customers and put them on 3dhubs, for ease of upload, quoting, etc. I am #6 in comments on THIS FORUM with over 600 messages, usually helping other hubs. I am on a lot of forums, write articles for some of the 3d printing news sites, contribute to the 3dprinting on Reddit. I am a strong influencer in this industry. I don’t see myself pointing any of that in the future at a site that says I am a prototyper, that I use “Prototyping plastics”, etc. And you should see my email inbox today, oh my some hubs are upset!
They don’t really know who we are. They think we are just whining. We have been patted on the head here. We are pretty smart. We are engineers and software developers and teachers. We run CAD machines and keep our 3d printers running, and run STEM programs. We do complicated things like 3d modeling, and robotics, and some are even lawyers who just love the hobby. Some of us handle very complex issues for our customers. No amount of " don’t worry about it, the data shows you will be fine" will make us feel better.
Because we are smart enough to understand that:
This is a zero sum game.
When a customer uploads a model, one hub gets that print. Everyone else loses.
When a bad hub gets artificial reviews for poor quality prints, and moves up on the list, another hub moves down.
If you can’t understand that we understand this simple fact, any other “keep calm and keep printing” statements will ring false.
I am not going to type much more, because I am getting ridiculous, and I am just starting to get angry about this. Suffice it to say that I stand by my first posts to a thread that I did not even start…
A: 3dhubs is denigrating FDM printing by saying the prints are low tolerance, by asking new users if they want “help selecting materials”, stating that they should have low expectations for quality at the shopping cart point, and labeling our materials as “prototyping materials”. They are doing this to push customers to do higher margin prints. They are doing this slowly and methodically, and hoping FDM hubs, or competitors to 3dhubs.com do not notice.
B. 3dhubs made a sweeping change that only benefits them**, and they did it without any input from US, and will not use different terminology even though they know “prototyping” is distasteful to the quality FDM hubs, because nothing we say will matter to them. As of today, its been up for 3 days****. WOW. And most hubs don’t even know about it, YET.**
