MakerWorld - Why Bambu Lab Will Copy Spotify

Bambu Lab announced MakerWorld in a recent blog post. While they mentioned many features, I believe that Bambu Lab has something else up their sleeve that they didn't announce that can potentially change the landscape of 3D printing forever - Pay-per-print. This is 100% speculation, but there are some pretty enticing ways this service could be used within MakerWorld to further strengthen the Bambu Lab ecosystem by aligning incentives for designers, 3D printers, and Bambu Lab themselves. Regardless of whether this happens or not, I enjoyed the thought experiment.
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[@tombo7719]

Think everyone wanting to profit on every aspect flies in the face of open source, and just a lil disgusting to be honest

[@madebyjwillis]

I disagree but thanks for sharing your opinion

[@tombo7719]

I should have charged you for it@@madebyjwillis

[@Shayway]

This makes a ton of sense. I’m on the fence about how I feel about it though. I understand how this would be great for creators, and I definitely think it’s something to explore. But, I think it’s important to have free STLs available to incentivize remix culture and aspects of open source. Not to mention, if I’m paying $.50 for a print and the print fails, I would be pretty upset if I had to pay for it again. 😂 Another great video. Thanks again for solid content!

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks for watching! The way I would envision that it would work would be if the print was stopped before it got to 100%, then your account wouldn’t be billed (you could try again). Definitely not a bulletproof concept, but I think the general idea makes sense. I don’t think the free files would go away by any means - I just think this is a better solution for designers who want to protect their work than what is currently available

[@dexter-wy5bo]

@@madebyjwillisI foresee a lot of prints missing the top layer 😂

[@ivanroldan7794]

All of the new companies effort is turning property sistem into a rent sistem like ie netflix, ( in 1980 you buy the movies and you own it forever, now you pay per view if you stop pay you own nothing, and they can raise prices at will) the companies profit toon more and you will be paying again and again for the rest of your life. Both prusa and the bambu model you speculate are bad for people and great for companies. Rent model is slavery, they will trick creators giving them small margins more to enslave paying the rest and when model were installed and all people use ir they will raise prices and smash you. Just SHARE your creations with creative commons and remix other creations to adapt them to your problem, if all people do it you will not give your money to companies and you will have toons of solutions. If you want to support those creators cuz you value their efforts just pay them directly, they will earn more, you will pay less and companies will not enslave you. Otherwise you will not have anything and you will not be happy

[@madebyjwillis]

Interesting take but I think there is value in the companies creating systems like the ones I mention so that creators can make recurring revenue through their systems

[@Forsaykin]

Great insight. Hoping Bambu never uses this model. If they do, I see this leading to ads within the app and probably even on the touch screens. I also see this leading to mod chips and the sort as the community always finds a way to circumvent these shenanigans.

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks for watching! I see pros and cons, but it’ll be interesting either way!

[@Fluffywings84]

What I am seeing Bamboo try to do is democratize 3d printing even further while also making money from it. Imagine your parent owning one and it is as easy as pay on the site and clicking print.

[@GRainwater13]

Wonderfully insightful analysis! Thank you so much.

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks! Appreciate you for watching!

[@bloodniece]

Next thing we know they will draft their own closed source machine code to replace gcode.

[@Bebamyotamaki]

First thing to say, I have Bambu labs X1C and I print a ton with it. As a expert user of 3D-printers, I would like to slice my prints myself. And I quess that I can’t do it with MakerWorld, as you said. Bambu labs has issues with trustworthiness, like with datasecurity. This will not make them anymore trustworthy. Bambu lab is also going towards fully closed system and MakerWorld is going to be big part of it. Thing is that Bambu labs filaments quality are not very good compared to other brands. And I fear that bambu will cancel 3rd party filaments out on some point.

[@madebyjwillis]

I think it would still let you slice your own in some cases, but yeah it’s definitely trending towards a closed system. In some ways that can be beneficial depending on how you look at it, but I understand how some people disagree with the model. Thanks for watching!

[@monkeywrench1951]

The business model you are proposing makes perfect sense for 3D printing if BL’s model includes licensing split for designers. I always hoped for a distributed shapeways type shops where someone owned the shop and mixed their own products with licensed products and that shop didn’t even need to print themselves. 3D prints could come from a printfarm and as they are printed on demand the designer gets a small licensing cut. I sincerely think all companies were just too focused on the next earnings call to implement a long term plan like this. I’ve had a shapeways shop for years and watched as it gets less and less “business” over the years. Now shapeways is shaking the tree for some cash and asking in desperation shop owners to join their $15/model liquidation sale. They had a lot of money for quiet some time and could have opened their shops out for a licensing model, instead they chose to improve marginal efficiencies for a fundamentally flawed business model. I hope BL cannot patent this business model because even though they seem fine people, they are in China and nothing under the Chinese government’s eye can be ever trusted.

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks for commenting! Great to hear about your experiences and thoughts!

[@monkeywrench1951]

@@madebyjwillis bambu is now allowing model uploads. So far their model is similar to prusa’s printables.

[@PerfumeBoxLotus]

thanks for this video ❤ it was well prepared

[@NeilLund]

I'll still be building and working with open source. It's a lot more rewarding continuing to learn new stuff without giving up freedoms. Contracts always have unforseen costs. Keep an eye on big Corporate money entering this space, its the sign its a race to the bottom. As the moral and excitement will inevitably dwindle as the money and control sways. Not to discourage anyone from enjoying the ride up as this space blossoms for the next several years as it grows, just know when to change gears into the next venture.

[@madebyjwillis]

I don’t think any of the artists getting paid millions by Spotify are mad that “big corporate” Spotify exists

[@scouzi7201]

Il will be like an App Store model. Bambu will take 30% and creator will keep 70%. Also the surprise boxes they are distributing is a model they're testing. One could make a business selling the accessories (ie fasteters) that go along a model.

[@madebyjwillis]

Yup that’s basically what my company does for enclosures haha

[@bfc4837]

Thank you for your analysis, but the biggest problem is that the 3D printing community is too small.

[@madebyjwillis]

$17 billion dollar industry - seems big enough to me

[@dennisdecoene]

spotify is in dire straits financially. (no pun intended)

[@madebyjwillis]

I disagree but thanks for watching!

[@dennisdecoene]

@@madebyjwillis kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2KtZGl6n9iHd6Msi=TzK4i5iBAiQWcnkA

[@mistaJ0091]

This is an awesome breakdown and historical analysis. Thank you!!

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks! Appreciate you watching and the kind words!

[@joehimes9898]

Hey, Joseph. Great video. I have an ancillary question. How did you record your video? I am a retired Family Physician and am teaching Pathophysiology and Pharmacology to Physical Therapy candidates. Trying to transition from old school to electronic teaching.

[@madebyjwillis]

Congrats on retirement! I just used the iPad screen recording function to markup everything and then had a separate camera record the video portion. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of syncing the videos up, I’d look into Loom - it does something similar but is more straightforward

[@joehimes9898]

@@madebyjwillis Thank you, I will.

[@madebyjwillis]

@@joehimes9898 best of luck!

[@anwyll]

You may want to redo the margin analysis slide with a licensing fee that's more comparable to actual costs. Eg you used $100 fee but your ghost example doesn't cost that much. The challenge for this model is it relies entirely on the walled garden. Plus given recent news I wouldn't trust Bambu to write my gcode. Let alone for machines they did not build if they want to expand beyond their own garden for a service that fundamentally is volume driven. Edit: also you can reconstruct models from gcode, although you likely lose resolution. This will not prevent model theft without additional protections and Bambu's use of this already has some in the 3DP world unhappy.

[@madebyjwillis]

It was an example for easy math - it’s easier for people to follow multiplying by $10 instead of $5.93. There are models that cost more, others that cost less. It does rely on the walled garden, just like how Apple is the most valuable company in the world. I’ve never seen an STL reconstructed from gcode, but I highly doubt that’s as straightforward as you make it sound give the many variations in infill/perimeters/etc for printers.

[@anwyll]

@@madebyjwillis gcode to stl - you only need to account for external surfaces, infill and travel moves etc are all redundant information. Ask yourself - how does the Prusa Gcode viewer work?

[@madebyjwillis]

@@anwyll magic maybe?

[@anwyll]

@@madebyjwillis also Creality has the Voxelizer specifically to turn gcode into stl. It's just not widely used because there isn't a need. Until you limit access...

[@mysteriousfox88]

walled garden, machines calling the cloud? lol

[@madebyjwillis]

Pretty much!

[@tymoore1900]

So what happens if you don't have internet?

[@madebyjwillis]

You get internet

[@tymoore1900]

@@madebyjwillis some places still don't have internet i. e. The rocky mountains! If you can't help someone why waste their time with asinine replies?

[@madebyjwillis]

@@tymoore1900 do you watch KZbin without internet too? And use Spotify?

[@tymoore1900]

@@madebyjwillis I have the internet on my phone, but it is limited. I can't run my printer from it!

[@madebyjwillis]

@@tymoore1900 well I don’t think you’ll be able to use this service… unless you get internet or a WiFi hotspot

[@yapdog]

This won't happen. There's not enough money in it. You're thinking about this as a maker who sees value in a 3D print. In order for such an effort to succeed, there must be a general demand for it, i.e. Bambu Lab would have to offer something that average consumers want. This ain't that; 3D printing is still a highly specialized need, and we makers would drop Bambu Lab like a cheating spouse if they did such a thing. So, if Bambu Lab truly is going after a pay per 3D print business model, they are doomed to fail.

[@madebyjwillis]

So why are there already 3 marketplaces that sell only 3D print files? Plus hundreds of Patreons?

[@yapdog]

@@madebyjwillis In those cases, the sellers build the market not buyers; you'd be hard pressed to find those who actually make enough to sustain themselves. Even so, those vehicles exist because some makers have dreams of selling a lot of prints. Most sell few to none... unless they, themselves, already have an audience. We're talking about scale, though, which would be necessary to be worthwhile to a business like Bambu Lab. They may try it, as you suggest, but they'll likely find it to be more trouble than it's worth. But, hey, I'm open to being wrong, tho 😁

[@madebyjwillis]

@yapdog I agree that most don’t make a full time living off of it, but I think Bambu would be looking at it more from an ecosystem play as I mentioned in the video. If some system like this works, even if Bambu doesn’t make money on it, they could draw more users into the ecosystem. It’s the same thing Apple does with keeping iMessage locked to Apple devices/etc. If I was a designer selling prints (I make all of mine free to try to build an audience, as you have referred to already) and I made a print that caught on and became popular, I would like it if I got paid per print instead of the flat fee for the reasons I explained. And I think Bambu is one of the only companies that is even capable of doing this type of thing. But time will tell - who knows, I could be completely wrong! Thanks again for watching and for the discussion! Best of luck with your prints!

[@yapdog]

@@madebyjwillis 🤔 Brand awareness *_would_* be a motivator, but they'd have to be aggressive in promoting not "prints" but products that happen to be printed. These would be premium products that can't be produced any other way, which would certainly increase awareness/revenue... with the right collections. Hell, even I would explore that biz model. Thanx for the great video and discussion. With your knowledge and open mindedness, you will surely go far and build a loyal following. I'll keep watching, anticipating your success 😁👍

[@madebyjwillis]

@@yapdog glad to have you on board! Thanks again!

[@rollingr1535]

I would love if bambu did this. Great video!

[@madebyjwillis]

Thanks!

[@DavidHyman031]

Maker world has been game changing for me. So much easier to print from my phone

[@madebyjwillis]

Nice! I haven’t used it yet but looks like it’s pretty seamless