Makershape, your 3D printing community

Dear 3D PrintBoard members,

I'm the sole founder of Makershape and i would like to share with you a few details about this project.

Makershape is a new 3D printing community, a free space to help artists and crafters share their creations online.

I've always been passionate about technology and i strongly believe in this industrial revolution, which evolves greatly everyday and has yet to show its true potential.
One year ago i joined a few 3D communities and i didn't like the graphic, UI design and overall usability. I wanted to create something more simple and easier to use.

Share, print, connect. Made simple.

I've just launched the Beta program to test the core features and it will be limited to a certain number of members.
Someone asked 'Why should i join Makershape?' and i would like to highlight these points:

1- Makershape wasn't created by a manufacturer but someone like you loving innovation, freedom, artists and makers.
2- Better design and usability
3- Easier. only STL Files compatible with all printers
4- Models are shared ONLY free
5- Makershape will never steal and patent people designs (like some companies do).
6- This community will really care about users privacy. It doesn't require public informations and won't sell their data
7- This is only the beginning but i'll need your help to make it a solid reality

If you wish to join Makershape Beta, please apply at www.makershape.com
You can also contribute by liking our page at www.facebook.com/makershape

We still have to develope lots of features but now it's the right time to test the software platform and i would love to hear from you to shape it better.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions at founder@makershape.com

Regards,
Giovan Battista Lischetti
CEO
Makershape Ltd

People who want to give their work away have plenty of places to do that already. What designers want more than that is a place they can get a little money for their printable designs. It's great to share and all, but the power companies aren't giving away their electricity, the supermarkets aren't providing food for free, and landlords still seem reluctant to let people live in their apartments without paying rent. Why should designers, who have expenses like everyone else, be expected to donate their work to this "community"?

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awerby

(...) Why should designers, who have expenses like everyone else, be expected to donate their work to this "community"?

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

---

Dear Andrew,

If someone wants to make money from their artworks, i obviously understand it and there are other communities made like an ecommerce.
There is currently another thread which i'm sure will answer to all of your doubts and questions.
I saw your works and you are an artist, allow me to quote a few lines from the RepRap Forum Thread regarding my opinions and Makershape values:

"I always lived working as a digital designer in a small office. As i said, this project was born from love for innovation, freedom, artists and makers.
One year ago I just wanted to create something i love from A to Z, something i could be proud of and made for people.

If you look at the incredible things created by the makers, you wouldn't think it's so strange.
Isn't this also the spirit of the Makers movement?
(...)
Last year, i really liked the 'Zeitgeist: Addendum' movie and, although reality is very bad most of the times, there are many people working everyday to make a better world. I also love to think about humanity in future evolving like in Star Trek, but i'm sure it won't be ever like that."

---

Please, for anyone reading this, check the other thread before writing. It would really be of great help if i could follow only that one.

Kind regards,
Giovan Battista

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Makershape

Please, for anyone reading this, check the other thread before writing. It would really be of great help if i could follow only that one.

Kind regards,
Giovan Battista

---

Then why did you start this thread?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ssayer

Then why did you start this thread?

---

Hi ssayer,

the 3d printing community is currently very fragmented in different forums and i do believe lots of people just stick to the one they love more (e.g. i love computer technology and innovation but i only follow some websites too).

I'm really sorry if i offended someone here, that wasn't my purpose!
It's just that we are a very SMALL company and i'll try to follow and answer as much as i can.
I still want to develope lots of new features since Makershape is just the beginning, i'm sure you will understand i've got no preferences at all.
Since i already replied to a few questions there, i thought more about "well, that's already a good summary". :)

You say that " this project was born from love for innovation, freedom, artists and makers." But how does giving ones work away support innovation? What kind of freedom can one have in this society without making any money? How do you help artists by subverting their markets? What kind of a "maker" are you if all you do is download other people's stuff, print and sell it?

If everything about this site is free, how is it going to sustain itself? Selling Google ads?

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awerby

You say that " this project was born from love for innovation, freedom, artists and makers." But how does giving ones work away support innovation? What kind of freedom can one have in this society without making any money? How do you help artists by subverting their markets? What kind of a "maker" are you if all you do is download other people's stuff, print and sell it?

If everything about this site is free, how is it going to sustain itself? Selling Google ads?

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

---

Dear Andrew,

i liked your questions and i would have loved even more to talk with you directly while drinking something and sharing our thoughts.
There is a common denominator in all of your questions and it's money: payment for your work, money for living, earning money from selling items.

While i do respect your ideas, all people are different and each one of us has got shades. For example I did (and i'll hope to have time to do it again) lots of 'personal works' just for passion, to improve myself and because i really loved doing that.
Maybe no one will view this stuff, but i don't care because i did it for myself. That's my opinion of art as a full expression of ourselves free from any mental and/or physical chain that society impose to us everyday.

I liked that quote of Henry Ford featured on the homepage of Makershape (although i didn't really liked some bad things he did during his life...) because it's an expression of these values along with innovation.

You say 'it's right to be payed for this creations' and i don't say that's wrong, but i don't agree for example with lots of designers taking advantage of this excitement about 3D printing just for making money (and i could have done that easily too). We aren't all rich and not all people do stuff for money.

About ADS: i like to be transparent. During last months it has been the biggest problem in my mind: 'How can i pay for the servers and bandwidth? omg how can i do that with an increasing member base?'. I had payed for the first 6 months and you know what i ended up thinking? Maybe the people will help me keeping it up, because i believe i'm not the only one thinking like this. I'll give more choices and people will choose what's the best one.
Otherwise i will still be proud of what i've done and i'll just go back to my job :)

Sure, let's get together for a drink - where are you located, anyway? What's your name? I hope you can take my criticisms in the constructive spirit in which they're offered. I agree with the people in the RepRap forum who offered feedback on your site at www.makershape.com - few of us are going to give up their email address for collection before even seeing what you've got to offer. For someone who's all about transparency, openness and sharing, it seems odd that you're hiding behind that opening screen, and whatever anonymity these forums afford.

As an artist myself, I'm no stranger to the idea of doing personal work without much hope of any reward for it. But there's a difference between doing that and giving my work away for other people to profit from - you, by selling ads, and the other members of your "community" by downloading it for free, printing it, and selling it for whatever they want to ask, without giving me any credit, or money, or even thanks. I don't see how you can stop them from trying to patent these things either, if they want to.

This seems to be a business model that's becoming increasingly prominent lately. Makerbot used it very successfully, creating Thingiverse, which leveraged the contributions of individual designers to allow it - a company based on open-source technology - to sell itself to a major company for $403 million, and then turning around and trying to patent the technology it had borrowed to get it there: http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/0...come-takerbot/ . Born-again liberal Arianna Huffington used a similar strategy to bootstrap her collection of crowdsourced articles into something she could sell for $314 million to AOL, without sharing any of it with the writers who provided the content: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjwalker...-made-nothing/

So there seem to be some people who are able to leverage all this "sharing" that's going on over the internet into sizable profits for themselves. As Orwell's pig had it, we're all equal here, but some of us are more equal than others. Please forgive me for mentioning money, but it's something we all need, and if we don't get it from doing what we love doing, we have to do other things.

In a recent article, economist Robert Reich pointed out that regular jobs are getting scarcer all the time, and people are being pushed into freelance work at the margins, where computers can't compete: http://robertreich.org/post/109894095095 . Designing things is one of those little niches. Taking the remuneration out of it, by building ever more sites that give away people's work for nothing, seems like something that just makes things harder for those independent designers trying to scrape out a living in this rather bleak new era of capitalism.

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by awerby

Sure, let's get together for a drink - where are you located, anyway? What's your name? I hope you can take my criticisms in the constructive spirit in which they're offered. I agree with the people in the RepRap forum who offered feedback on your site at www.makershape.com - few of us are going to give up their email address for collection before even seeing what you've got to offer. For someone who's all about transparency, openness and sharing, it seems odd that you're hiding behind that opening screen, and whatever anonymity these forums afford.

(...)

In a recent article, economist Robert Reich pointed out that regular jobs are getting scarcer all the time, and people are being pushed into freelance work at the margins, where computers can't compete: http://robertreich.org/post/109894095095 . Designing things is one of those little niches. Taking the remuneration out of it, by building ever more sites that give away people's work for nothing, seems like something that just makes things harder for those independent designers trying to scrape out a living in this rather bleak new era of capitalism.

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com

---

Dear Awerby,

i would have been sospicious too, because lately there is lots of talkings about greed companies or bad 'terms and conditions'.
But if we all think bad about everyone, won't we end up not seeing light anywhere?

During last December week I did the following modeling and rendering of Makershape work office room just for me to improve my skills (and i didn't like to post it, it was a personal work):

http://i1068.photobucket.com/albums/...psopwbeztz.jpg

Don't you think i wouldn't had the skills of taking advantage of 3D printing as a designer by selling stuff? (and i did it many times in past).
I had fallen in love with the idea of building something not only useful to me but for people, removing lots of 'barriers' not user friendly.
I earned much more respect for this project in a few days than for 7 seven years of work and that's enough for me, thanks.

I won't earn money from models, i'm making people sharing them easy and i'm trying every way to exclude ads on this website. As i stated before, it will be up to the community to choose life or death of this website.

Now, let me quote you about '(...) being pushed into freelance work at the margins, where computers can't compete'.
There is lot of talkings about robots, automation and future. It remembered to me an awesome short movie i saw on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

I don't think Makershape will be anything to worry about compare to other things, it will be very useful for people to cut distances and share models easy in different ways.

Regards,
Giovan Battista