I am not 100% with @MakerBot1 being the PosterChild of our Industry, but ok.
Dual extruder is nice, heated bed is … wait what they didn’t had one?
But charging $ 2800 for two extruders and heated bed is … well … how do i put this … @Makible charges $ 100 Plus for the Heated Bed Version (which includes a more powerful power supply)
Originally shared by 3D Printing Industry
Makerbot Takes Centre Stage at CES 2013
OG replicator didn’t have heated bed. The “upgrade” with the 2X…is…drumroll please
Being able to print with ABS. Being able to print with ABS is apparently $600.
Yes, even in a steel frame it’s price is completely out of proportion compared to a Makibox or an Ultimaker.
It is however in line with the RepMan/3D Touch. (w/o heated bed, 3 heads and ABS/PLA on cheaper 3mm stock instead of 1.75mm).
So for a business-case the price looks rigth…but only at first glance and when you pour enough into marketing to be seen as the poster child.
Yeah , that price is…how should I put it mildly… insulting ?
I doubt It can do nearly the speed of an ultimaker as well…
For $2800 I’ll assemble, test a reprap and deliver it in person…
@ThantiK Also wash your car and do house work for a week!! LOL and still have money left over to take you out for dinner…
@Nils_Hitze yeah. And all the things @Bruce_Wattendorf says. Shit…I get $430 for 2 weeks worth of work. For $2800, I could basically build a reprap in a week, and have $2.2k left over to deliver it world wide.
People assign value to the price. If they’ve never purchased a 3D printer, they will assume that the highest priced one is priced highest for a reason (we all do it). It’s what the market will bear. Plus, they have crazy NYC overhead costs.
They tried. One of their founders is still here.
To be more serious, just different markets. It makes sense, as in they are doing good business, but there are a lot of other potential points in the market as well. Their positioning will work for a limited amount of time. Look at the Apple premium that went away over time, similar situation.
BBL
It’s two steps backwards. To pretend that they were always PLA printers and that ABS is some wild new frontier is total marketing BS. They no loner represent anything in the Maker ethos, they are nothing more than marketing whores. Sorry but they treat their people like crap and slapped us in the face with all this mumbo-jumbo. They no longer get one dime of my or my work’s money. Comparing to Apple is disrespectful to apple. Steve Jobs was an ass so I guess there is that parallel. I’ve printed “100 micron” on my cupcake so whatever. This and thingiverse just continues to distance them from the shoulders of giants they are now slapping.
@Mark_K If you compare the cost of an Apple laptop now to a PC laptop vs. early 2000’s, their cost has tracked closer and closer to the effective commodity price if you consider other computers to be commodity. Basically, the brand has some value that consumers are willing to pay additional cost for, if you sell more, you dilute the brand and also create more support work. Over time, you either pick a low volume, high price and elite brand positioning or high volume, lower price and affordable brand positioning.
The whole painting printing with ABS as experimental really disappointing. They had how much in funding that could have gone through some reasonable R&D, but it is re-directed towards marketing. But, oddly enough, 3D Systems also has trouble printing with ABS, as shown in some of the more recent videos of their new machine. Odd.
@Jonathan_Buford I don’t think so, I think the PC laptops are now offering more high-end deals. Commodity laptops are $350. 11" MacBook Air is $1000. Perhaps the idea of what is “commodity” or what is acceptable in a laptop has changed. In early 2000s if you compared comparably equipped laptops and desktops for Mac vs PC the prices were similar (we used to have this argument weekly at work in early 2000s).
