At the end of last year I read an article in 3dprinting.com named Unique Ways Small Businesses Utilize 3D Printing Technology. Beside the article, that does not bring that much, I fundamentally disagreed with the introduction (oh no, yet another post in the business category). Actually I found that this post was still a draft in my blog, so let's publish it as a reminder to the statements propagated by "major" information sources...
The original author stated the following:
And for the complexity, well... everyone knows working 3D printer can be be made oneself for a few hundreds euros, or bought for 500 or so (but be well aware of the hype)! Everything was sitting there for decades to be done, and probably only the electronics were the part that really went down (but certainly not to the point they would have prevented the fields from reaching the mass).
One proof is that as soon as the first major patents were over, things started to thrive again. In 3 years, the open community did more to the field and for the public than the major industries did in decades. Old-style businessmen have often their own way of thinking, added to their own constraints (see e.g. the businessman and the maker)
Sure, as the original article says, prices did go down and made the average-joe 3D printer possible (which is still untrue in my opinion).
But prices went down not because the technology was less expensive, but because the players were not the same!
One may object that there really were key technological bricks to be invented first, such as the ubiquitous Arduino that powers the printer. Indeed, it costs way less than former industrial micro-controller solutions... But I cannot agree more: in itself it is also an open-source "revolution"! In my opinion, Massimo Banzi did the exact same for the worlds of mainstream electronics with the Arduino than Adrian Bowyer did to the world of 3D printing with the reprap.
Price went down because the tool was democratized, and because immediate greed and patents were put aside for a while: the breakthrough is to be found in the business model of these two people, and not the technology itself! By the way, eventually they will have created whole new industries and jobs probably more than the former patent holders will have.
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We see the result in factual comparison of the printers themselves: a "pro" FDM printer still costs 20K+, and its users are still stuck with a few colors of extremely expensive ABS. At the same time 1K+ printers bring tens of different materials and hundreds of colors. And trying, e.g. wood- or bronze-laden filament would void the warranty of the "bigger" printer. Oh, when I say "bigger", I mean the "outside dimension", since the low-cost printers also wins the printing volume/overall volume ratio... and often with a higher precision (once properly set up).
No wonder 3D printing was not democratized by the industry so far!
This is the gorilla and monkey parallel: the gorilla is just bulky, harsh, unfriendly, not reactive, tricky to deal with and so. The monkey is swift, curious, it searches and finds new stuff... until either it becomes a gorilla on itself, or it gets eaten by the gorilla. And, oh, gorillas kill, not monkeys.
It brings me to the second proof: Stratasys Gorilla buying Makerbot Monkey. Without going back to the many reasons you should not buy a Makerbot 3D printer, I want to say here that the $430M deal could have better been spent by Stratasys in the first place to create entry-level printer themselves, decades ago.
Remarkably and as everyone knows, Stratasys strategy immediately made Makerbot closed source. And after heavily funded marketing campaigns, both the image and the product reliability of Makerbots are now collapsing. It did not take long to happen.
It is no surprise to most of us and they no more respect the obvious and positive strategies of the smaller to survive. The monkey lost it soul when it joined the gorilla, the patent holder that did not have any incentive to rely on humanist values for its economical success (just check the employee opinions btw!). It even proved it did not have to invent much further (past the initial patents and more attempts to prevent others from innovating in turn).
In fact, and even though I am probably no fortune 500 teller, I join many makers that expect them to fail badly with Makerbot, even if they probably still sell a lot of them thanks to decade-long and well-trained selling strategies.
The wide open market is not a bunch of few uniform clients of the industry that can be tricked into buying with the same technique they applied for decades.
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| As soon as it is business humor, Dilbert is a beacon. |
The original author stated the following:
[...] this new technology was going places. However, it remained limited to large commercial ventures and industry manufacturers for almost thirty years due to high costs and the complexity of the machinery itself. Now, though, [...] the cost of 3D printing has dropped dramatically in recent yearsNo! At least for FDM, 3D printing did not go mainstream sooner precisely because of the very business strategy of the early 3D printing companies themselves. They willingly kept the business closed, with very expensive printers. Add to this outrageous margins, and it is no surprise that it did not go mainstream for decades.
And for the complexity, well... everyone knows working 3D printer can be be made oneself for a few hundreds euros, or bought for 500 or so (but be well aware of the hype)! Everything was sitting there for decades to be done, and probably only the electronics were the part that really went down (but certainly not to the point they would have prevented the fields from reaching the mass).
Proof 1: Short-sighted greed vs. Reprap and Arduino philantropy
One proof is that as soon as the first major patents were over, things started to thrive again. In 3 years, the open community did more to the field and for the public than the major industries did in decades. Old-style businessmen have often their own way of thinking, added to their own constraints (see e.g. the businessman and the maker)
Sure, as the original article says, prices did go down and made the average-joe 3D printer possible (which is still untrue in my opinion).
But prices went down not because the technology was less expensive, but because the players were not the same!
One may object that there really were key technological bricks to be invented first, such as the ubiquitous Arduino that powers the printer. Indeed, it costs way less than former industrial micro-controller solutions... But I cannot agree more: in itself it is also an open-source "revolution"! In my opinion, Massimo Banzi did the exact same for the worlds of mainstream electronics with the Arduino than Adrian Bowyer did to the world of 3D printing with the reprap.
The breakthrough is in the business model, not in the technology!
Price went down because the tool was democratized, and because immediate greed and patents were put aside for a while: the breakthrough is to be found in the business model of these two people, and not the technology itself! By the way, eventually they will have created whole new industries and jobs probably more than the former patent holders will have.
We see the result in factual comparison of the printers themselves: a "pro" FDM printer still costs 20K+, and its users are still stuck with a few colors of extremely expensive ABS. At the same time 1K+ printers bring tens of different materials and hundreds of colors. And trying, e.g. wood- or bronze-laden filament would void the warranty of the "bigger" printer. Oh, when I say "bigger", I mean the "outside dimension", since the low-cost printers also wins the printing volume/overall volume ratio... and often with a higher precision (once properly set up).No wonder 3D printing was not democratized by the industry so far!
This is the gorilla and monkey parallel: the gorilla is just bulky, harsh, unfriendly, not reactive, tricky to deal with and so. The monkey is swift, curious, it searches and finds new stuff... until either it becomes a gorilla on itself, or it gets eaten by the gorilla. And, oh, gorillas kill, not monkeys.
Proof 2: Stratasys and Makerbot
It brings me to the second proof: Stratasys Gorilla buying Makerbot Monkey. Without going back to the many reasons you should not buy a Makerbot 3D printer, I want to say here that the $430M deal could have better been spent by Stratasys in the first place to create entry-level printer themselves, decades ago.
Remarkably and as everyone knows, Stratasys strategy immediately made Makerbot closed source. And after heavily funded marketing campaigns, both the image and the product reliability of Makerbots are now collapsing. It did not take long to happen.
 |
| A 1K€ printer vs an absurd 20K€ printer |
In fact, and even though I am probably no fortune 500 teller, I join many makers that expect them to fail badly with Makerbot, even if they probably still sell a lot of them thanks to decade-long and well-trained selling strategies.
The wide open market is not a bunch of few uniform clients of the industry that can be tricked into buying with the same technique they applied for decades.