So why would I take a video announcing a mostly untested new purchasing option in the store, and release it only hours before Sunday, when I have a pretty strict policy about working on Sunday? Simple. I’m an idiot.
Actually, I meant to release this video on Friday. but after watching the rough edit I realized it was an unwatchable mess. So I proceeded to aggressively edit it into something slightly more watchable. Yes, this mess you see before you is actually an improvement over what I wanted to release. Of course aggressive reedits take time, and I didn’t manage to get this mess out until just before I went to bed on Saturday, flipping the switch on the Filament of the Month club at the same time. So it should come as a surprise to exactly no one that stuff be broken. At first it was Stamps.com, who I am gaining a serious distaste for the more I am forced to use them. Then it was Amazon pay.
I think we’ve got it all sorted out now. Orders are starting to roll in, and… yeah. Good stuff. I’m already getting requests for international shipping options and annual payments. We’ll figure that out after we get the first month shipped. There’s a lot of logistics to work out here.
You may have noticed, I always try to find the bright side in things, even in a printer from a brand we love that is no longer anything more than a puppet for another corporation. That’s the way I am. But I hope I also made clear in this video my opinion of it so far. Of course that opinion might change if I actually get my hands on one.
Now that I’ve had some time to think about the possibility of trying out a Makerbot Method., if Stratasys were to approach me and say “Tell you what. Free method. Print your legos. Tell everyone what you think,” would I take them up on that? Upon embarking on this though experiment my initial reaction was “No”, which kinda surprised me in a meta-thought kinda way. So I dug deeper into my psyche to figure out why and the best I can figure is that it boils down to 2 words. “Chipped” and “Filament”. See, its not that I’m opposed to the practice as such. From a business perspective, I get it. It’s just that their material and color options are so BORING! I want the option of doing fun materials and colors one day. But with chipped filament, there’s a whole world of options that are closed off to you. I mean, I know their target audience is industrial users, but even engineers like to have fun.
That said, the geometric options that are available via their dissolvable supports… Mmhmm. I would love to get my hands on that. I’ll bet that would print some sweet minis.
Okay, if Makerbot were to send me a trial of their printer, maybe for a month or two, and then take it back before I have to go crawling back to them for more filament, I’d feel okay with checking it out and I’d do a video for you all about it. But, if they were like “Na, keep it, man. We know you’ll be BAAAACK” I would probably politely decline. Is that weird? I’d rather play with it for a little while than own one of their machines. Yikes. That’s not a stunning endorsement.
