Dear Shapeways,
Given the potential dramatic consequences for shop owners, it would be fair that you would provide:
1. Exact data to all shop owners. Appearently nobody gets proper information about the price consequences of both FUD and FXD.
2. The exact implementation date is unclear. 'In the week of may 22nd' is too vague.
3. Given the fact that the amount of price changes and the lack of information the timing is extremely short (as usual).
Please INFORM the shop owners adequately.
Given the potential outcome it makes sense that already uploaded models would remain calculated according the old way, for at least a number of weeks. Only new uploads, or after clicking to implement the new pricing strategy the new way of calculation should be adopted. The motivation of SW is not to make parts more expensive, so why the hurry to implement such drastic changes?
Some things appear strange to me. The new calculation systematics support people to add sprues and to decide to orientate a model the wrong way around. Sprues are a source of rejections and printing problems. I thought SW was striving for better printing quality. The so-called upside-down bathtub orientation is suppose to get the best printing result. This costs more support material. But isn't a high surface quality one of the USPs of FUD/FXD? Why do you support to cut models in two as you showed here:
https://www.shapeways.com/tutorials...ium=email&utm_campaign=20170510-FUD-Repricing See: make a design short.
In my understanding you get:
1. warped monoparts that will not fit correctly
2. a very bad surface quality of the roof portion (why on earth would you confront customers with a hell of job of cleaning and sanding?)
3. you get a split line were you wouldn't like one (what was the good thing about 3D printing?). I split parts because you can otherwise not clean and paint them properly, not to save support material costs. I understand that you cannot reuse the support material, but I also understand that customers are often willing to pay a bit more for better quality. Once you open the gate to design products wrongly to save money you'll get designers who want to save money. Once such cheaper products a bought by customers, they will experience that SW is maybe not a good 3D printing facility.
I thought SW was trying to get the best results. The pricing mechanism does in my opinion not support this. It may be a better reflection of the cost base on first sight. But if you add the added costs (reprints due to broken wires), the rejection tragedy you still have, and potentially worse product surface quality you will end up as a discounter with little added value. It's penny wise...
If you want to sell more products you can lower prices, but it's better you increase your performance. Especially as important forerunner of 3D printing techniques it make sense to do this. Another thing still lacking here is the multi language platform. Please add German, French, Spanish, ... A small guess is that it will easily double the sales of the model rail road stuff. The English-only approach is a huge roadblock for many customers. We've received zillionj times questions by our customers asking how on earth the Shapeways-shop works. That's a real missed opportunity.
Regards,
Maurice
RAILNSCALE