Hi again all, as this thread becomes bigger and hard for me to reply on each comment, I’d like to suggest to jump on a call next week to discuss the matter and work towards some next actions together.
Please let me know if you’re available on:
I’ll add you to the invite once you’re availability is confirmed.
@cobnut @Perry_1 @Steelmans @Enza3D @PepCo_Parker @Zapaer
Please let me know!
Thanks again,
Filemon
@PepCo_Parker Thanks for agreeing with me. However, I was not saying to not point out the downsides. Just do so in an informative and positive way. For example, with Resin, rather than say “extensive exposure to UV light” which (besides being nonsensical) sounds bad, when it really isn’t. How about “HQ Resin is made with light. Long term exposure to UV light is not good for the part. This can be mitigated by painting the object in cases where extended exposure to UV light or sunlight (for those that dont know) is expected.”
SLS Nylon instead of Cavities within design, go with “Modelers should design holes where cavities occur, so nylon can escape those cavities during the process” More informative, less negative. Much better than a big red minus sign.
Full Color Sandstone instead of “intricate features” say “Sandstone is less smooth, and small intricate features could be lost during the FULL COLOR process” emphasizing that hey, you are going to get full color!!
I cant find the one that said Longer Lead times. But what if it said HQ printing takes longer than lower resolution printing, and requires more human interaction during the printing phase, so HQ printing has longer lead times.
All more informative, none of which degrades that material or FDM.
Finally, as for the tolerances, that was sold to us as a means of lowering the expectations for customers, who may be unaware of just how FDM works. They say they were getting a lot of complaints. Rather than listen to suggestions, they just threw that out there. It could certainly be worded as "Tolerances on less expensive, fast printers are not as close as tolerances on higher quality printing methods. We guarantee prints will not have tolerances beyond +/- 1% or 1mm.
This is the kind of input they ignored.
I agree that this wording is totally wrong. It’s both misleading and just flat out false. That’s not the highest quality FDM machines can guarantee, it’s what 3D Hubs is guaranteeing. I’m really starting to dislike this relationship of words being put into our mouths.
I like the automated messages system, but I don’t like that we still don’t have an option to change or set exactly what we want the messages to say. (Referring to the automated messages that post when a new order is requested). That’s just another example of tools that I think we should have at our disposal, but despite that being brought up several months ago (Right when that feature, another thing left unspoken between hubs, came promptly out).
This was caught by a hub, where a customer from the their personal website pushed the order to 3d hubs, the customer was shown the tolerances warning, and then they showed the customer how they could get a better print in SLS and SLA from another hub. Because this was unconscionable, once this came to light, 3dhubs removed it.
However, I asked if this was also removed when a repeat customer, who we have earned the right to keep, comes to the hub. This has not been answered.
DONT LEAVE. POST YOUR POSITION, perhaps with something more descriptive or even stronger than “thats not cool at all”! It is important to be heard.
What can you do? Well, if they dont fix it, there will be a vacuum formed in the industry, because nothing opens the door to competition like ruining your brand and hurting your base.
I’ve seen no increase in SLA orders either though; honestly orders have been (way) down since late January across all my printers. Usually I get at least a few orders per week on the Form, but I’ve seen that many in the past month. My placement in the rankings has been bouncing all over the place for no reason as I can see (top of first page one day, bottom of second the next), so maybe the algorithm is being changed for that as well? Somehow Hubs from Pennsylvania with few orders rank higher than one from NYC with 200+ order for the NYC area, so I really don’t know what’s going on there.
My placement has also been moving around. One day I was placed below hubs in other countries!!!
However orders have been consistent until the changes. Coincidence?
I suppose I do get a lot of student orders, and it’s not quite crunch time for semester projects yet so that could have something to do with it. But the placement thing is odd, and I do wonder if so many factors go into now that it’s difficult (near impossible) to predict where Hubs will end up when a file is uploaded.
Could it be that 3dhubs is pushing your customers away, by describing the most common form of 3d printing as low quality prototyping? Perhaps they went to another 3d printing web site altogether; one that describes 3d printing as really fantastic. Maybe they went to one of the printer farms instead.
Perhaps your customers were shown a “can i help you choose a material” dialogue when they arrived at your hub and went to a different hub after that material was chosen, or they saw pro****totyping materials, and went to a different hub, OR when they finally got to the point of buying, they were told that the print would be substandard, and they should “consider a different material” and went to a different hub.
Don’t worry, the data shows good outcomes!
@Steelmans 300 orders. Great reviews. Just the kind of hub 3dhubs does not want anymore. Those are some fine “low quality prototyping” prints you have on your website.
I do see the number of reviews on your site have dropped off dramatically, so I can tell you are telling the truth about orders.
Wow. You would think every employee on 3dhubs would be in here on this thread.
Maybe you are just a victim of the new ranking, you know, repeat business, blah, blah… which is what filemon suggested for another hub that said thier orders were dropping off.
Or maybe 3dhubs has implemented a policy that sends frighten customers away, that sends customers from your hub to other hubs, or that sends customers to other 3d printing sites, or that sends customers to printer farms.
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I think you also have your own website, and do printing outside of 3dhubs if I recall. Well, just remember that while 3dhubs redefines FDM as low quality prototyping materials, YOUR ENTIRE MARKET, not just 3dhubs, is being redefined.
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WHO at 3dhubs decided this was a good idea. WHO at 3dhubs decided to not fix it.
3dhubs personnel have definitely had discussions about this, and I guarantee one of the comments was “We have enough hubs, do we really want a few to push us around?”. This is how you open the door to competition.
You said " I do wonder if so many factors go into now that it’s difficult (near impossible) to predict where Hubs will end up when a file is uploaded" THIS specifically, is what 3dhubs does for a living. It is their main job. They are supposed to know exactly how it works.
We have, of course, been saying for awhile that it is broken, and they stated that they are working on tools so that folks other than their IT department can help figure out why hubs get ranked as they do. But that is a discussion for another thread.
yes rejecting an order due to recommending a different service will reduce your page rank. I went from page one in my area to page 2 just for sending someone to a sla hub as fdm was not a good choice for them. and now I am on page 2. now also understand I am the only hub in my town and hubs 100 mi away are being shown over mine that is right in town. the ranking system is flawed.
Why would you take a perfectly good SLA print and recommend it to an SLA printer 
? That is not the goal here. The goal here is to take perfectly good FDM prints and recommend them to SLA printers!!!
sorry I forgot lol. the thing I am most angry about is the fact that I got bumped from the first page in my area for doing the right thing. also I am the only print hub for about 20 miles and others from over 100 mi are being presented ahead of ours. now I have 2 dormant printers. how can you decline an order with out being punished for doing the right thing.
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.
They can send some of those orders to me!!! Please!!!
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.
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
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.
Also, good to know some other folks from 3dhubs are following this. Maybe we can get some results!
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.
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)
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.
