I was one of the lucky chosen few to be sent a Lulzbot TAZ6 before the May 17th official release date. I’m under embargo from Lulzbot on showing the printer in video AND on discussing deeper details on the workings of the printer. That said, my kids wanted to help, so we put together this. I hope you enjoy it.
Originally shared by 3D Printing Nerd
Announcing the @Lulzbot3D #TAZ6 #3dprinter cc: @alephobjects
@Jeff_Dewe This was all I was allowed to release at this time. It was to solicit questions in the comments for the video I am allowed to release on May 17th. I say you can pre-order through Matterhackers because I knew they had their pre-order page up, plus, it was an affiliate link and I wanted to make sure people saw that and didn’t think I was trying to sneak one by. The pre-order let’s you order right away, but I’m guessing Lulzbot isn’t shipping any TAZ6 printers until May 17th. Right, it’s $2500, but I have no control over the price.
@Jeff_Dewe I don’t know, you should ask them. I’m under an embargo until May 17. Maybe they aren’t? Maybe they have a different deal with Lulzbot?
Looks like they use Igus bearings also :), I was thinking of upgrading my bearings to them.
What’s the point of you getting a pre-prod model if there’s an NDA?
We’ve already seen the sins they cover up in the software market.
Who does it benefit? And why are you going along with it? (so you get free early stuff?) Embargoes help no-one and only exist to hide things from potential customers, in all fairness Joel you deserve shit for going along with that kind of thing.
Anyone who isn’t indebted to companies have no reason to play the “let’s hide shit from the customer” game.
NDAs are corporate manure…Is that where your loyalties lie?
I don’t like the fact that you would do this, it makes me wonder about your motivations for everything else you’ve said. It makes you untrustworthy.
If you don’t have the freedom to be open with us, who do your videos exist for?
@Elf_Tablet pre-prod model? it’s not, this is one of the first off the assembly line. what you would get is the same as what I got.
I’m not under NDA, I have an embargo on showing the printer on video and discussing it in deep detail until May 17th.
Why am I going along with what? They sent a printer to me early so I could have experience with it before the May 17 release date. This way, any video I produce about it can drop on May 17.
Again, not under an NDA. At all. An NDA exists to keep information from reaching the world. I’m under an embargo - any information I have cannot be release until the shipping date. I can post all the photos I want of the printer on social media, and I can talk about printer details - I just cannot go into “deep detail”
You don’t like the fact that I got a production printer early? Tom got a TAZ 6 early and is under the same embargo I am. Do you question his motivations for everything and believe him to be untrustworthy as well?
How it’s classified is irrelevent.
NDAs are anti-consumer and anti-consumer action is in direct opposition with your audience.
Haven’t you also said in your videos that (paraphrasing, I’m not going to get side-tracked on wording) effectively your videos are beholden to no-one and that all opinions are your own?
That simply doesn’t scan when you are willing to indulge in corporate secrecy just so you get privilege, which in this case is a printer you wouldn’t have received had you declined to be complicit.
If I’m wrong and you’ve never claimed impartiality then by all means I fully and wholeheartedly retract the above statement.
Tell me, to whose advantage is it that you comply with wishes of NDA and receive privilege (actually, let’s stop beating about the bush, you’re aware this is bribery, yeah?) because of your willingness to do so? It’s CERTAINLY NOT to your audience’s advantage, so that just leaves yours and what ever entity is filling your pockets.
There are plenty of other tubecasters who don’t indulge in this kind of underhandedness and actively downcry getting things for being willing to comply with NDA’s and if you have a brain in your head at all YOU KNOW FINE WELL THE POSITION THIS PUTS YOU IN and you know why it’s distasteful… but you do it anyway.
As far as I’m concerned you’ve thrown any claims to integrity or impartiality out of the window. You’ve become untrustworthy in your opinion and ‘trustworthiness’ is the entire foundation for any reputation you may lay claim to.
@Elf_Tablet Awesome! Thanks dude. High five. [EDIT - oops, posted this to the wrong comment thread, sorry about that]
@Elf_Tablet I think you are over-analysing the situation.
The TAZ 6 is slated for launch on 17th May and Aleph don’t want to leak too much information prior to the launch.
By giving folks like @Thomas_Sanladerer and @3D_Printing_Nerd machines early permits them to create review videos that are available at launch.
So if you’ve been thinking about purchasing a TAZ 6 you will be able to make a decision on launch day after watching one of these videos rather than having to wait for videos to arrive afterwards.
@Elf_Tablet Lulzbot are the last company i’d accuse of being secretive - they’ve had all the documentation, photos, 3D files, simply everything on their public servers even before they had officially announced the TAZ 6’s release: http://devel.lulzbot.com/TAZ/Olive/
All the embargo does is to align the release date of any reviews (positive or negative) with the official availability of the TAZ 6. This is far from losing trustworthiness, as any reviewer will tell you, even full-blown, month-long NDAs are super common in the tech scene. Complying with an embargo has nothing to do with not having the freedom to state an honest opinion, it has something to do with respect for the other party. Lulzbot could have simply sent out the printers on release day, all that would have changed would be that now everyone would rush to be the first to post their superficial review. Obviously they have an interest in people being able to take the time to really look into the details of the machine.
Plus, we do need to return the printers when we’re done with the reviews.
No I’m not, The fact is he got something in return for his agreement not to discuss what they didn’t want discussed.
Considering his entire existence in 'tube, in the manner he wishes his presence to be portrayed , is only justified by discussing matters with his audience in an impartial way, this obviously and unequivocally goes against that.
Where do we draw the line in our acceptance? Do we constantly and consistently ignore this kind of thing when not only do we know where it lead but we have more than enough examples of the destination? Do you want youtube broadcasting in this (or any other matter) to become the sewer of self-interest we’ve seen games 'journalism" become? That’s exactly where it’s headed if everyone comes to believe that they can fill their pockets under with impunity at the expense of their veracity.
It is what it is, degrees don’t matter… How is it slightly ‘OK’ if they do this, is there a book with strict rules that we can turn to and say “The line has now been stepped over, see?” No, there isn’t, and as it’s unacceptable across the board then it gets called when it’s seen… and this has been seen.
You and others may (or definitely will if you want to put it that way) excuse him, but that is down entirely to your own personal biases and has nothing to do with what is factually correct., and the fact of the matter is in return for being willing to be less than open with his audience he is receiving privilege, and that’s the text book definition of bribery but we KNOW it’s bribery, that’s not under dispute, it’s your willingness to accept it that you are arguing in favour of, or rather my unwillingness to do so.
Casters who owe their ‘career’ to their audience have no justification to accept agreements that go against their audiences best interests.
Disclaimer… I’m not one of his audience, so my motivations for this post are not that I feel ‘slighted’ in some way and any personal biases you or anyone may feel that I have can entirely contributed towards my general biases towards matters like these.
@Thomas_Sanladerer
Hello Thomas, Firstly can I say that I’ve enjoyed your videos very much and have learned a great deal from them. Thank you.
The fact is I’m accusing Lulzbot of nothing, this is how business goes, this is the norm for them… They (business in general) get away with this kind of thing, it benefits them to do this and up to now (the last decade or so) no-one has been in a position to object because we’ve never been told the in and outs of their (business in general) ‘advertising’ methods, but we are aware of it now, not only that, but we are aware of how it affect and influences the veracity of unbiased reviewing and opinion and upto now we’ve see every route of business reporting take this path of least resistance, “You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours” and it has become decried by anyone with a sense of ethical value. It’s bad enough from industry sites but now we’re supposed to accept the exact same behaviour from some ordinary Joe who wants to cash in on audience views… Really? We’re supposed to accept that?
Bulldust, I never will, I won’t accept it from industry (although I’m regrettably not in a position of actually do anything about my distaste) and I won’t accept it from someone expecting to turn public view into ready cash.
You can’t say “Yes, I accept privilege from companies in return for my complicit silence in matters of their choosing, but I would never throw my audience under a bus” and expect to be believed because the two are mutually exclusive, there’s no middle ground here, either you’re accepting backhanders, and you compromise yourself, or you’re not, and Joel Telling is and his motivation, his reasons, his excuses for doing so are irrelevent because they would deal with degrees, and this is a black and white matter.
There’s one prominent tuber (I would love to name him but even I can see should I start to ‘expound his glories’ the entire motivation for my post could be seen as some form of fanboy-ism, so I will refrain from doing so) who SPECIFICALLY states that this kind of behaviour is something he will never get involved in, and he has my admiration for that.
I have to admit to being very disenchanted at having to justify a position that should be screamingly obvious even to a blind man.
Edit… Do you do this?
@Elf_Tablet Then I must be a very bad person indeed and in the same “Sin Bin” as @3D_Printing_Nerd and @Thomas_Sanladerer . Why?
Because some 15 years ago I was a member of the Red Hat Linux Beta Test Team who were tasked with testing unlaunched software and reporting bugs so that the release would be a much higher quality.
Now I see the error of my ways and I hang my head in shame but, at least, I’m in good company.
Hey Joel… High five!
That’s the only argument and come back you have? Factiousness?
I assumed I was talking to an adult, my bad.
@Elf_Tablet I don’t understand what you find wrong with this method. It’s a prerelease product and he wants to show his content which is totally legal and fine. The fact that they gave it to him for free is not something you should get mad about. People who make YouTube videos work their asses off to get their videos to high quality. And his audience shows. He has almost the same subscribers as @Thomas_Sanladerer and in much less time. His content is interesting and obviously enjoyed just like Tom’s.
Companies send out products all the time like this. It’s just a marketing method. It’s no different than handing small things out at large events, it’s just to get exposure.
He gets a product in return of making a video. Yes it is free so you might get a slight bit of bias but I don’t see any of that from his reviews. I watched the lulzbot mini review and every single thing he said was correct when I got mine in. If Lulzbot wants to send him a product who are you to say it’s wrong? @Thomas_Sanladerer used to work for BQ when he reviewed the hephestos 2 and it didn’t seem biased in the least.
@Elf_Tablet I was applying your analogy to personal experience. By your analogy you would question my integrity for receiving software in advance of others.
Also, by your analogy, you would want me to refuse to accept that software early and take my chances with more problems like everyone else at the release date just to demonstrate that I am an ethical person.
What you seem to neglect, in your posturing, is the expectations of and commitment demanded of those receiving the printers early. Aleph Objects expect that the recipients will produce a review of the product for launch day. They have asked that they don’t disclose the content of those reviews before the actual launch. So the “benefit” of receiving these machines is additional work for them for no benefit other than being given the machines early enough to achieve that goal.
As to my adulthood, I am 54 years old so I do qualify for that. As for anything else regarding my ethics, morals etc. you should not make any assumptions or judgements.
@Neil_Darlow
No, in grown-up circles you don’t come back from that regardless of the hasty backpeddling.
I don’t participate in playground hair-pulling contests.
There are more than enough proper discussion I can be involved in rather than with someone doesn’t have the faculties to tell that that kind of thing doesn’t score points with anyone worth considering.
@Elf_Tablet No one is hiding anything. How do you propose that this should have gone down? All that is occurring is Joel is being given time to review and produce his video, instead of his video showing up 2 weeks after the release.
What is so wrong about that?
How does a video 2 weeks after the release of a product help the consumer? Isn’t the consumer benefited by timely release of honest reviews?
Well first and finally I suggest no-one take shit under NDA when the very definition of NDA is “don’t tell anyone anything we tell you not to”, ESPECIALLY when their only job IS to tell us things and keep us fully informed.
Who are they doing it for, who is advantaged by this? You?, the rest of the audience?
…and I’m out, If people are incapable of understanding the conflict in interests, my posting, isn’t going to make a difference.
Tone. Also who said it was a free printer? Embargos are perfectly normal in the PR world and honestly I don’t see a problem with these. NDAs suck yes but Embargos are for coordinating Press Releases, so stop making such a giant fuss about it and if you don’t like Joel’s videos, don’t watch them.