Probably not the original source but I completely agree with the issues brought up by the redditors in the article. Anyone have a similar experience?
Yeah, it’s hard for me to make sense of what is going on. I can’t tell for sure ‘45sbvad’ was in the wrong or not, but it seems clear 3DHubs had done a poor job of handling the situation.
I used to have an order a week on 3D Hubs and now I haven’t had any orders in months. I’ve kept up with all the updates and my prices are below average but their ridiculous site never puts my hub on the first page of searches.
I’ve always wondered if we will see a moment where the underground 3d printing universe (if there is one 
would have a napster moment and create a dark net of files via peer to peer to get around “the Man”… (puts tinfoil hat on)… and everyone prints for free secretly directed to drop prints anonymously via augmented reality maps ingress style to level up. You never know what part your printing but your designs arrive at the drop location simultaneously via several handoffs in less time than you could print them (take that amazon)
All payments would be points where you can get free filament or more prints. I would print fan to get metal parts delivered.
If you read Daemon and Freedom… this all sounds familiar
I love living in the imaginary future.
Just for fun,
Brook
I wonder if this is only in the U.S. is. When I go to the 3D hubs site, I still get the nearby hubs.
@Eddy_Castro Supposedly this started as a two month “experiment” in the US that should have only impacted about 15% of the customer base.
The article mentioned “alternative sites” what other alternative sites that are like 3Dhubs? Do they even have competition?
MakeXYZ is competition in the US.
Been discussing this with some potential investors behind the scenes here locally; at least a few guys are miffed enough @ 3DHubs that there is discussion about creating a similar site but broader in scope (3d printing, laser cutting, etc). We suspect 3DHubs were getting a lot of instances where they would match people locally, and then those people would pair up and “bypass” the 3D Hubs site for future jobs, thus cutting 3D Hubs out of the loop…
@ThantiK unless the new site doesn’t take a percentage of all business that will continue to happen.
@Jeff_DeMaagd true but makexyz was a race to the bottom. Then they went to a system where jobs with fixed prices would get posted and a printer could choose to accept it. Neve once saw one on there that was worth even considering. The site is cancer.
@Ben_Malcheski oh I agree but they are competition of sorts. And that part of the site was terrible, though that wasn’t the only way to get work. Some listed jobs were 15" tall parts, they expected 0.2mm layers and offered $80 for one part. Another was a model space fighter like an X-wing with lots of delicate details that require resin, the site offered $6.
@Brook_Drumm ‘a napster moment’, seriously I would like to see that. The problem with all these centralised cloud based services is that at some point they unilaterally change the terms and conditions and always for the worse or so it seems (although in te case of 3D Hubs that’s still up for debate). Now if we could get a capable programmer interested to write that p2p program…
I met the guy that wrote BitTorrent once… very interesting guy. I think that platform has the stuff needed. I don’t think reinventing the wheel is necessary… the tech exists, just needs to be proven to work for this use case
Time for a new free 3dhubs? Any takers? Advertisement should be able to feed the business support and allow laser cutting as a service offer. Strange 3dhubs never took this laser cutting option up despite the obviousness and the repeated requests across the globe.
Well if anyone does take this idea up I would be happy to be a participant and tester.
I would be more than happy to participate in a test although I’m a complete noob when it comes to bittorrent. Setting up a Raspberry Pi based torrent client looks easy enough (https://www.howtogeek.com/142044/how-to-turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-always-on-bittorrent-box/) but from that point onwards I could use guidance.
https://www.howtogeek.com/142044/how-to-turn-a-raspberry-pi-into-an-always-on-bittorrent-box/
I almost just wrote “I’ll pay for the servers”… ha! That’s the point, there wouldn’t be any real cost. So how do we entice talented programmers to do a grass roots thing? There has GOT to be something in open source now that shares files and offers tagging to enable search. Thumbnails/pictures are a must. Github? BitTorrent? The platform could be java (ick) or node developed on platformio for any browser. Something!?
Imagine: 100% of the money going to the maker! Or 95% and the last 5% into a pool for more programmers to jump in. Or a pool for sprint bounties- one brick at a time. A Kickstarter?
As a manufacturer of hardware, I see it only as a benefit! Competing w billion dollar companies or deeply backed startups is a non-starter and they do have a way of drifting toward commercial, proprietary services. If they didn’t have that on the roadmap, they wouldn’t get funding. They believe they can boil the frog slowly, but in today’s tech, customers have grown tired of giving away their ownership and are more and more likely to just out of the pot.
Dropbox and github did it right… clear lines of when to pay. And generous freemium services that keep the casual customers happy to milk the free services or pony up for convenience.
There is something here.
Oh, look at octoprint! Totally free, but Gina is really disciplined to go at her own pace and provide reasonable ways to get herself paid.
Brook
@Brook_Drumm Maybe a block chain (ie cryptocurrency) with a browser built for 3d printing could do what you want without needing a server. Ethereum is an interesting crypto that also offers smart contracts built into it.
Sounds awesome. And hard.