I'm surprised more big outlets haven't done the same also. This is all about profit, and like the printing industry, it's largely based on consumables. Coming directly from a printing background, I can tell you that this is how printing companies primarily make money. Service contracts and toner agreements. In the case of Cube systems, They have a 100-500 percent mark up margin on all their proprietary filament, so it's much like the days of bubble jet printers all over again. Great for businesses, bad for consumers.

I feel open source 3D printers are the way of the future, not these cut down machines that are designed to look pretty and make your average house wife (or house husband) with no prior knowledge of 3d modelling or printing, believe they can simply turn it on and churn out that spare Stove dial or kitchen cupboard handle in a few clicks of a mouse. Any of us with printers know it's not all that straight forward.