Comment on The Enshittification of 3D Printers – Are We Losing What Made Them Great?

j4k3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

It is simply an entry level thing. You will find this in every market.

In a bike shop retail market I can sell you a serviceable bike for $500 that will last, or an $800 road bike you’ll actually ride. Still the majority of bikes sold come from places like Walmart where they are made of unserviceable junk and are mostly nonfunctional. These are rarely ever ridden and often thrown away. In the shop I’ll sell 20:1 on the cheapest model to the next options up the ladder.

It is strange to adapt to this kind of understanding at first, like just how skewed the real market is. I can target selling to clubs and teams but I can’t touch the the garbage bike market where most people reside.

I think we are at a point where the influx of people into 3d printing are not real Makers or have any aspirations to be.

The reality is that people are often simply stupid. They seem to think that saving a few bucks here or there is smart but are not bright enough to see that everyone doing the same thing are buying the junk product over and over. There is nothing more expensive than being a cheap miser.

Ultimately, the only person that can fix stupid is ourselves. One can only inspire others to learn but can never force them. You cannot fix stupid in others. In the USA, stupidity is political currency and we have a long tradition of poor education and standardized exploitation. It is the American dream.

I think LDO and Voron are the only super relevant open source torchbearers.

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