@Mark_K When I say commodity in this context, you take a similarly equipped laptop, there is less of a difference between an Air and an ultrabook from someone else than there was for Apple hardware 15-20 years ago.
You can either accept the fact that Makerbot is trending toward becoming the Apple of desktop 3D printing or you can get bent out of shape about it. It’s happening. Get over it and put your efforts toward innovating in the open-source printing community instead.
we do, we are just bitching around
So I don’t think anyone doesn’t get what Makerbot it doing. I own two UP! printers so I try not to get to high and mighty about open-source. What people reacted to was the about face they did from their roots. They also clearly said they are trying to get to the level above the hobbyist/maker market. I really wanted to be happy for them because good people still work for them but it can’t feel good to have your dream job turn into this mess. Ironically they are trying to become the enemy they bitched about before and reason they created a affordable printer. Now they have a $2800 “experimental” printer that was built from the firmware to the new plastic hoods from the community.
If one compare Apple products with other manufacturers machines with similar (but still inferior) build quality, the Apple stuff comes out as very cheap. You can’t expect one pieced machined aluminium to be priced the same as cheap plastic. This comparison does not hold for Makerbot as there is nothing about it except for “brand” that can justify such ridiculous price …
And yet, @Tom_Oyvind_Hogstad , they are putting them on the desks of many engineers at Ford, and from the sounds of it JPL will soon be making a large purchase for their engineers to use as well. There is quite obviously a market for them at this price point. My source is a very recent interview (20 minutes ago) that Engadget had with @bre_pettis .
If they break into the corporate world, that is great for them. Large corporations generally value an organization able to tend to theire needs. Currently no Open Source 3D manufacturer can do that.
Did someone already say Android and Open Source OS? Well…