Interesting video interviews with @bre_pettis of MakerBot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6yaAw8ZVms
…but Anakin Skywalker made stuff (C-3PO, pod racers, etc) that worked.
Pop quiz!! Name a MakerBot product that worked anywhere near as well as advertised. (yes, it’s a trick question… they’ve never produced such a product.
With Makerbot? Mostly that they’ve always made inferior products and charged a lot for them. Spend some time in their google group - it’s full (and has been full for years) of people with machines that don’t work…
@Dave_Durant that’s because in general…people are pretty dumb. Take any working machine, even some of the Objets, etc and start letting stupid people poke around in them, and they’ll break too.
@ThantiK The problem (besides all the others) is that MBI markets to people who don’t have the skills to make their machines run the way they say they will run.
Overpriced, not keeping up with innovation, taking from the community without giving back (often spitting in our collective face for our trouble), abusing employees, etc. These are all reasons that the community hates them, but their customers who buy their BS marketing and end up with a machine that doesn’t live up to their expectations don’t even know about the rest of us.
they violating the GPL applied to reprap.
@ThantiK , it’s not (just) that people don’t know what they’re doing… MakerBot has always been sub-par on quality and performance. And they’re the most expensive machines.
MakerGear, one of the (IMO) better names in this part of the market, was founded because there was such a high demand for Cupcake parts that actually worked. MakerBot wasn’t making them so MakerGear was founded.
A whole company came into being just because MakerBot made such crappy products - not because their users were clueless.
The problems I read about today don’t make me think that things have changed very much in the last few years.