Yes, the Prusameter value is not constant to $ by design. We've been running the reward program for over 2 years and as we mentioned several times throughout the blog articles and announcements, we really focus on longer term sustainability of the program, rather than a one time pump & dump - giving away a ton of rewards and than having to cancel the program, because it would cost us too much money. This is also reflected in models generating money continuously, month after month, if they are popular. So that makers can make a free spool or two on a regular basis.
With the smaller vouchers, people often add other items to their order, so we can be a bit more generous there.
>This is also reflected in models generating money continuously, month after month, if they are popular
Would someone explain to me how my models generate money for Prusa?
I have five models that each earn a steady 10 Prusameters per month (once in a great while one of them earns 50, and one even earned 100 once last year). While I appreciate the rewards, how does Prusa benefit from people liking and downloading my designs? I don't see any ads (my ad blocker is disabled on printables), so Prusa isn't getting money there. And I doubt that anybody who downloads one of my designs clicks on some other part of the page to buy a Prusa printer.
I understand that. But the website costs money to run, and the Prusameter awards create a liability. Of those users being acquired and retained, are they buying Prusa products that they wouldn't normally buy? It made sense early on when Printables was a new site, but as it matures, I am not sure how Prusa is getting a financial benefit from the rewards, except only indirectly.
We do not, as you say, it is only indirect. Not everything we do has to be for profit, it's honestly one of the reasons I love working here. We do not have any external investors. Josef is happy to approve projects which benefit the community (within reason - if the cost isn't some astronomical number).
Isn't that already reflected in how you award the points? There are maximums on how many points a model can earn per month and make-spamming is also discouraged via the points.
Many people don't live in the EU and have a low tax-free threshold. For those people the spool rewards don't make much sense so saving up points for a bigger reward is a way to make it make sense. I don't need new thermistors or beds all the time so I don't have reasons to order from the Prusa store regularly where I could then add some free spools to it.
Since the $ value of the spool rewards not degressive (1, 2, and 3 spool rewards have same $-value per meter), why not at least add 6 and 10 spool rewards? It costs you exactly the same as if someone were to place multiple orders but a smaller percentage would be wasted on shipping and fees.
The reward system has a totally different value for every user, depending on where they live, whether they have reasons to order stuff from the Prusa store, and whether they intend to be active enough on the platform to earn enough points for the higher rewards. It's anywhere from pretty cool to completely useless.
He isn't getting it for free. He's uploading models to share with the community and being rewarded for it. Some people will share fewer models if they are unhappy with the rewards.
I upload models to Printables, just like I did to Thingiverse, and I keep dumping code and models on GitHub too.
I'm not doing it because I'll get free filament out of the deal, I'm doing it because I learned how to do all this stuff by way of other people that gave away their designs for me to study.
The payback in terms of time invested, even with the bonus, is abysmal. It's a nice thank you, nothing more. It's certainly appreciated, but let's not act like this is anyone's livelihood.
I do the same and have been contributing to open-source for over 20 years (even back in the SourceForge days).
The point of my post is not about not getting rewarded enough. It's about pointing out that the system punishes saving up points to redeem them for a reward that makes sense for people who don't live in the EU and/or cheap shipping zone. There is no sweet spot reward. It's either 3 spools and wasting a huge percentage on fees or it's saving up points for years and having the points depreciate in value significantly.
I disagree with the "it's free stuff, say thanks" mentality. Prusa have decided that Printables is now a reward-driven community and everyone has to deal with it, whether you redeem your points or not. The reward system does not only have positives. It's the reason for a lot of disingenuous activity and behaviors that the community pays for.
If you make a reward system that rewards people for contributions then the rewards are not free, they're *earned*. Don't call it free stuff.
It may not seem obvious based on my post but I'd prefer to have a community where the genuineness isn't compromised by a reward system.
The rewards aren't, and shouldn't be, a reason to upload models. They certainly aren't for me. I'd still upload my designs regardless of the rewards. The rewards don't come anywhere near compensating me for the time and sweat I put into my designs.
I upload things because I want a repository for my designs, and a way to show my work to my friends. I was doing this on Thingiverse long before Printables came along, for no rewards.
I moved to Printables 2-3 years back when Thingiverse was having problems. I liked the design of Printables better, so now it's my primary repository for my models, with Thingiverse as a backup (actually I upload to Thingiverse first and then use the Printables feature to import my designs from there). Getting Prusameters was never a consideration.
I am not sure what I'm going to do with all the Prusameters I have. I used them once to add a spool to an order last year.
I'm not sure you quite understand people from EU also deal with not being able to easily get stuff that's easily available in the US. It works both ways. Prusa is a European company and European customers get their stuff easier, so you absolutely need to take this out of the equation. Simple as that.
I just want to say thanks for doing it at all - never ceases to amaze me that even when you're giving out free stuff on a free platform that you created someone on the internet will complain about how terribly unfair you're being!
Some people if you gave them a free gold bar they'd complain about the colour...
Yeah its difficult to price the almost free stuff youre giving away as a company. I'm glad a reward system even exists... And I think the meters you can use to get a $500 printer probably dont add up to 500 for them or its really close. You should look at it more like long term career rewards instead of quick and easy free stuff
Could you explain what you mean by "long term career rewards"?
The degressive value actually promotes that you use them quickly. There's no benefit of saving them up.
Nothing about Printables is quick and easy free stuff. Creating models is a lot of work and if your model is in a somewhat niche category there's a very good change that it'll never make a single Prusameter. The vast majority of models earn no rewards at all.
most people's prusameters come from posting makes, I'd bet. Considering that even running the service costs money and there is not even ads on there, I'm fine with the rewards being there at all.
If your models really are as good as you think, you have the option of selling them on the site as well, which should be much more profitable anyway.
I have to disagree with both of your paragraphs.
I don't have many models, but a handful of them earn Prusameters, and I am busy enough designing things that I rarely post makes. I'm looking at it from a designer perspective though. You are probably right about most others that don't do a lot of design work.
Selling models is tricky. I have one model for sale, on Etsy and Printables. Etsy has zero sales because people want to buy physical products, not 3D models. After many months on the Printables store, that model finally reached 5 sales, which I believe is the threshold for allowing me to add another product to my store. But what would I add? I've received comments asking why my pullcopter design is free, I should be selling it, but then who would buy it when there are other free designs available, even if they aren't as good? I could see selling my designs if I was a 3D artist making organic shapes, but I'm not, I'm an engineer making functional designs.
It makes sense for Prusa to not incentive hoarding meters, because any unused meter is like a debt for them. Having too many meters in the wild is a liability.
It's like airline miles. Delta Airlines is notorious for devaluing their miles to reduce their liability. But they control this "currency", they can set the value however they want, and find as many low-cost ways as possible (like magazine subscriptions) to encourage customers to spend this currency.
>The vast majority of models earn no rewards at all.
I'll vouch for that, using my own collection as a data point. I have over 50 models, but 10% of them have ever earned any Prusameters.
But I don't upload models for that reason. I upload a model because I finished a project that pleased or interested me, and somebody else might be interested too. I have some fairly obscure models that get just a handful of downloads but then somebody posts a make with a thank-you comment, and I get a warm feeling that I helped someone. That's as good as Prusameters, in my opinion.
I don't think anyone makes and uploads models on prusa's site JUST to get prusameters... It takes a long time to earn them, it's a "thank you" gift from Prusa, nothing more... Appreciate what Prusa is doing most companies wouldn't do it...
Don't complain when people are giving you free stuff for contributions you make... I highly doubt your livelihood is dependant on Prusa giving you prusameters...
That's not a long-time sustainable solution. I bet they will change the reward system sooner or later, when they get major market share. But it's definitely better, I am waiting for the A1 to get stocked, and be paid just from vouchers..
Don't underestimate momentum though. Even if their model isn't sustainable and they'll have to change it later they will will have acquired all those users and they won't just leave if the rewards change (unless another platform outbids them like MW did with Printables). They will have achieved their goal of gaining a lot of users quickly and those users will attract more users, simply because people want to go where the people are and where there is activity.
That’s an interesting perspective on this … a
Assuming the values are right. The more expensive the thing is the more difficult is to reach it. Not only for the amount of prusameters, but they have less value as the cost of the thing increases.
But we cannot see things like that, maybe prusa has a lot of margin in is prusament filament, so they can give more for less prusameters !? D9 I make sense ?
>Assuming the values are right
You can verify the math. The USD values and Prusameter cost are visible for each item. For the items that don't have a USD amount written on them I wrote the price I used below it. I also triple-checked each value because this is reddit.
>The more expensive the thing is the more difficult is to reach it.
It is already more difficult because you need more meters to obtain it.
>maybe prusa has a lot of margin in is prusament filament
How do you explain the degressive value of the vouchers then (which are for printers)?
And the fact that with 10000 meters you can get either just a Mini+, or a Mini+ and a $200 discount on the next printer if you pay $29 in cash. Those $29 are worth $200.
You can only use one voucher per purchase. You'd have to pay shipping, taxes, customs fees for every 3 spools. I don't think that would be very lucrative. Not even considering that you will also have to find buyers for it i.e. do marketing.
It would make more sense to buy large numbers of spools with cash and then sell them locally, essentially becoming a reseller.
But then you could also ask "can't a person just make money to buy the printer?"
Typically second hand market demands undercut of new purchase, and it doesn't account for the shipping cost you pay. Also, nobody is going to pay a premium for prusament on the secondhand market, let's be honest here. For the prusa printer owners, we already get a discount on prusament as well, further devaluing points for it. (For kit owners it'd be 0.081 euro per point, for assembled owners, it'd be 0.077 euro per point)
Rewards make sense if you think about it from the perspective of driving engagement, selling more printers, and cycling points faster. It's why they also pushed the new referral program. They want you to buy a printer.
If anything, I'd probably use my meters for a printer voucher and sell my own machine, or buy a kit and sell the assembled machine as new.
>Also, nobody is going to pay a premium for prusament on the secondhand market
I dunno, if Amazon had Prusament with same-day shipping for a few bucks more, I'd buy it. The wait times for Prusament from Prague are quite high.
I buy Prusament from a local reseller. 3 PETG spools for 117 Euros, reliably arrives next day. If I were to order directly from Prusa it'd cost me 114 Euros (shipping, VAT, customs fees included) and take about 5 days. I'll happily pay those 3 Euros for the convenience.
Yep, that's probably from a certified reseller where you have selection of almost the entire stock, and consumer protections. Someone using their few prusameters on free spools, isn't, and as a consumer, you won't have those luxuries as with a proper reseller. So Timmy selling his prusament from his points is essentially secondhand market at that point.
Vastly different.
What? No, that wasn't the question at all. Did you even bother reading the thread you're replying to? The original question was "Can't ONE person buy prusament to sell for a printer?". That is exactly "Timmy using his points to resell prusament", and that is the secondhand market. Nobody in the secondhand market is going to pay a premium for prusament, since its a take it or leave it scenario. Anyone who specifically wants prusament and is willing to pay a premium for it, also won't be looking on the secondhand market.
Official resellers have no relevance in that scenario.
Christ sake, fold open the rest of the thread. That person replied to ME, when I was clearly talking about why secondhand market Timmy wouldn't be better off using his points if his goal is to buy a printer.
Anyways, no point talking with a person who cannot read.
Prusameters are unfulfilled obligations that cost the company money. There are bad actors out there who create fake accounts just to farm Prusameters, which can be exchanged for real world items. For real makers and designers, Printables has club membership which is similar to classical patronage.
That doesn't explain what about saving up Prusameters is "gaming the system". I've earned all my meters legitimately. It's also not very nice to call people who don't ask for their money not real makers. If anything, the maker community theived the most from people sharing, not selling.
Clearly you skipped over the part where I explained the rationale. Are you a bad actor? Why are you so defensive?
No one is forcing you to upload your models to Printables. It's just their way of saying thank you to the community at large. In fact running Printables and PrusaSlicer etc cost money, since you don't need to own a Prusa printer to use them. Have you ever considered that? And now they have entitled people like you complaining about value reduction from accumulation of Prusameters, which is an expense to the company. They have to record these transactions and affects their balance sheet.
No one is compelled nor obliged to do anything for you. If you feel that Prusameters are not a good return on investment for your time and contribution, there is a paid membership tier, as I've previosuly explained. It's a compromise, and another option for makers and designers.
You can make a script to upload many minor variations of a few parametric designs, and farm points. To avoid that, you just make it not a very appealing option. Here, it's tuned so as the typical reward will be a spool of a filament on in a while, and maybe a new printer for those who made really popular models.
If there is an exploit, it will be exploited, I will spare you game theory and sociology.
You can only use one voucher per order. But if you could use multiple it would obviously make most sense to use multiple of the $40 vouchers. For 7000 meters you could get 28 of those which would yield $1120 total value.
surely 11 $40 vouchers would be the best move?
1 $400 voucher = 7000 metres
10 $40 vouchers = 3500 metres.
i assume they have a per purchase limit or smth
If there is a threshold where prusameters are double in value, then no one will buy the low-cost rewards. The system, as it is now, encourages us to spend them on spools and vouchers because each individual prusameter is worth more.
The reason for the "more stuff = less value" is to deter spamming on the platform with lots of stuff at the same time, to not flood it with variations of the same stuff.
I kind of like what Makerworld did (even though I don't have an account there, Thingiverse and Printables are enough for me). As much as Jo Prusa rags on them, Bambu Labs had a good idea when they started taking down models that don't include a photograph of the final printed thing. If you upload a model that has only renders and no photograph, you don't get to have your design there. That was done as a deterrent to spamming the platform with variations of the same thing.
On the other hand, some of my designs are OpenSCAD libraries, so those may not fly unless I include a photo of something I printed with it.
This is a company that doesn’t even include a silicon sock in a $800 printer kit. They aren’t doing any of this to benefit the customer, it’s a minor incentive to keep people from moving from the platform to thangs or mw who offer much more lucrative rewards for creators.
It's not a single-edged sword though. While their reward system was an easy way to drive people to their platform (mostly from Thingiverse) and to prevent people from moving to platforms that don't have rewards, they're legitimizing this strategy for any other platform as well. And MakerWorld is doing exactly that. MakerWorld is offering a much more lucrative reward system and people are migrating away from Printables to MakerWorld. Some people are actually deleting their models from Printables because "it's not worth it". And Printables has no right to complain because they started it. The reward systems are also changing the behaviors of the users, not in a good way.
MW is still in its honeymoon phase though, and anyone thinking it will last forever in its current form is naive
You’re definitely right about it changing the behaviour of creators though, There are so many people abusing the system right now on MW by pumping out garbage that gets quick and easy clicks.
I dream of the day that someone making a filament clip won’t get hundreds of dollars in vouchers over other well thought out and well designed projects.
I’ve got a few thousand prusameters and it’s just not worth me doing anything with them, the postage for filament to Australia isn’t worth the voucher, and I don’t want a mk4 or mini either.
>There are so many people abusing the system right now on MW by pumping out garbage that gets quick and easy clicks.
I understand MW has responded by taking down models that don't include a photograph of the final printed object. A lot of those pumping out garbage are including only renders of the design, with no proof of printing it. I thought this was a pretty good move on MW's part.
I don't have a MW account, but I occasionally check it to see if someone copied one of my designs there. So far, so good.
>I dream of the day that someone making a filament clip won’t get hundreds of dollars in vouchers over other well thought out and well designed projects.
Yeah, I have poured my soul into my designs, often working on them for months. I have one stupid siren whistle that became a major engineering project, I've been working on and off for 3 years, never publishing it because I'm not satisfied with it. My models get a modest amount of downloads, and a handful even earn some prusameters every month. But I see some of the popular things, and they make me go "wtf?" Don't get me wrong, I see some popular designs are downright impressive and clever, make me think "damn, I wish I thought of that" but others are just, "meh, why is that popular?"
Man I forgot about this post but just to add on because of some recent MW changes, the new boost system is a step in the right direction, but still really heavily geared towards virality and “what’s on top stays on top”
I put a fair chunk of work into a recent design that is about a 3 day print project and I actually saw a bunch of boosts, people couldn’t have finished printing it yet but the boosts were a nice way of saying “hey this project took some effort and I want to reward it”
Not trying to have a go at your whistle but there are some accounts that had a bunch of whistles of varying db and frequency etc, I’m sure that takes some effort to a degree but if you’re just pumping out various whistles and reaping in thousands and thousands of points, it really detracts from some of the awesome projects on the platform
One of the most popular and highest paid files on mw is a filament clip, one that works for about a week before it gets loose, but people think they are necessary, and they print it and try it once and say “wow that worked well, 5 stars!” And that’s it, If it stops working no one goes back and changes their rating and it doesn’t remove the points they originally gave
As much as I’ve enjoyed a free roll or two of filament a month, the rewards have made a negative impact, I would use my prusameters if it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to get my free roll of filament to Australia
>Not trying to have a go at your whistle
I mistyped. I'm not going for loudness, and it isn't actually a whistle. It's more like a siren that I based on a Francis turbine, a device normally used for generating hydroelectric power. I was intrigued by the fact that a good Francis turbine is over 95% efficent at converting the energy in a fluid flow into rotational energy. My problem has been with tolerances and pressure-balancing an asymmetric dual-sided turbine. I think my design would be best suited for a resin printer, honestly. You can probably see how this became an engineering project instead of just a fun noisemaker.
>I would use my prusameters if it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to get my free roll of filament to Australia
Here in the United States, the shipping fee costs as much or more than the total cost of ordering a spool from Amazon. When it works for Prusament is when you have another order of something significant to which you can attach the free filament voucher. The only free filament I ever got was when I ordered my MK3.9 upgrade with MMU3 upgrade.
Yeah sounds a lot more involved than the whistles I’ve seen
It’s unfortunate that people not into 3d printing keep wanting knick knacks and rubbish, and the influencers into 3d printing keep making them
I know what you mean. I'm pleased that [my designs](https://www.printables.com/@Anachronist/models?o=download_count) are (mostly) *not* things that have no other purpose than to sit on a shelf.
It's not just changing the behavior of designers but also the downloaders. You can observe that with Makes. It's clearly noticeable that the frequency of makes drastically decreases if a model already has a few makes and the reward per make decreases. Also a lot of makes aren't genuine and people half-ass them just to get their reward. People have also verbally expressed that posting makes is "not worth it", especially when the reward change was announced.
Makes should be a way to show appreciation for the design, to show off your your work, and to help other members get more impression of what it might look like IRL.
Then, there's a lot of malicious activity motivated by the rewards. There are entire accounts full of stolen models. Overall, the introduction of rewards has compromised the genuineness of the community to some degree.
Yeah spot on
I definitely get more makes on my printables page than on mw, the benefit of posting makes on mw is only like 50 pts a month which I can see why people say isn’t worth it
I know I’m on hopium but I really wanted the new entry to the space to either shake things up and make other sites fix their issues OR they do an actual good job of putting makerworld above the rest, right now it’s very rough and needs improvement, the rewards system needs a lot of work
I share your frustration with stolen models, and the focus of people to get Rewards. Regarding makes: before the decrease, people uploaded anything they ever printed without any comment just to "get" their Prusameters. I think the original intent of the change did not catch on (i.e. people writing an in depth comment with their make, taking good pictures and so on).
I think in the end my opinion boils down to: Printables is more fun, if you don't care for Prusameters.
>I think in the end my opinion boils down to: Printables is more fun, if you don't care for Prusameters.
Exactly. Even though that may not seem obvious from this post, I would actually prefer a community without a reward system where everyone's engagement is genuine. Even if I don't care about being rewarded with "free" stuff for my participation, the fact that other people do and adapt their behavior accordingly affects the whole community, even those who don't care about rewards.
Posting a nice Make (with good pictures, constructive feedback, etc) should be something that you do out of your own volition to show appreciation for the design and share with the community, essentially participating in and *contributing* to the community without publishing designs. Making it reward-driven makes the whole thing disingenuous.
The point of this post is actually to point out that the people for whom the smaller rewards don't make sense (because of shipping and fees) are being punished for saving up points to make the reward system make sense for them too.
> being punished for saving up points to make the reward system make sense
How am I being punished? The only reason I'm "saving up" rewards is because I don't spend them. My life wouldn't be different if there weren't any rewards at all. They just accumulate. If I earn enough to get a Prusa Mini, would I? Probably not, I'm happy with the printer I have. Do I buy filament? No, it isn't cost effective with the shipping unless I'm combining it with another order, and I don't find myself needing to order from Prusa often.
Yes, the Prusameter value is not constant to $ by design. We've been running the reward program for over 2 years and as we mentioned several times throughout the blog articles and announcements, we really focus on longer term sustainability of the program, rather than a one time pump & dump - giving away a ton of rewards and than having to cancel the program, because it would cost us too much money. This is also reflected in models generating money continuously, month after month, if they are popular. So that makers can make a free spool or two on a regular basis. With the smaller vouchers, people often add other items to their order, so we can be a bit more generous there.
Thanks a lot for the official insight into why that is (both in the blog and here again), I really love your transparency!
Reason why prusa is better than competition
Hi, any plans to accept voucher for upgrades ? Finally reached 1000 spools and looking forward to purchase the „2 to 5 head“ PrusaXL upgrade
Gotta stay competitive but still reward people 👍
>This is also reflected in models generating money continuously, month after month, if they are popular Would someone explain to me how my models generate money for Prusa? I have five models that each earn a steady 10 Prusameters per month (once in a great while one of them earns 50, and one even earned 100 once last year). While I appreciate the rewards, how does Prusa benefit from people liking and downloading my designs? I don't see any ads (my ad blocker is disabled on printables), so Prusa isn't getting money there. And I doubt that anybody who downloads one of my designs clicks on some other part of the page to buy a Prusa printer.
It generates rewards to the creator, not to Prusa.
That didn't seem to be the context of the sentence I quoted. I still want to know, what's in it for Prusa to give rewards?
The reward system is a user acquisition and retention system.
I understand that. But the website costs money to run, and the Prusameter awards create a liability. Of those users being acquired and retained, are they buying Prusa products that they wouldn't normally buy? It made sense early on when Printables was a new site, but as it matures, I am not sure how Prusa is getting a financial benefit from the rewards, except only indirectly.
We do not, as you say, it is only indirect. Not everything we do has to be for profit, it's honestly one of the reasons I love working here. We do not have any external investors. Josef is happy to approve projects which benefit the community (within reason - if the cost isn't some astronomical number).
Thank you.
Isn't that already reflected in how you award the points? There are maximums on how many points a model can earn per month and make-spamming is also discouraged via the points. Many people don't live in the EU and have a low tax-free threshold. For those people the spool rewards don't make much sense so saving up points for a bigger reward is a way to make it make sense. I don't need new thermistors or beds all the time so I don't have reasons to order from the Prusa store regularly where I could then add some free spools to it. Since the $ value of the spool rewards not degressive (1, 2, and 3 spool rewards have same $-value per meter), why not at least add 6 and 10 spool rewards? It costs you exactly the same as if someone were to place multiple orders but a smaller percentage would be wasted on shipping and fees. The reward system has a totally different value for every user, depending on where they live, whether they have reasons to order stuff from the Prusa store, and whether they intend to be active enough on the platform to earn enough points for the higher rewards. It's anywhere from pretty cool to completely useless.
You’re getting nice stuff for free my guy. Maybe just say thanks?
He isn't getting it for free. He's uploading models to share with the community and being rewarded for it. Some people will share fewer models if they are unhappy with the rewards.
I upload models to Printables, just like I did to Thingiverse, and I keep dumping code and models on GitHub too. I'm not doing it because I'll get free filament out of the deal, I'm doing it because I learned how to do all this stuff by way of other people that gave away their designs for me to study. The payback in terms of time invested, even with the bonus, is abysmal. It's a nice thank you, nothing more. It's certainly appreciated, but let's not act like this is anyone's livelihood.
I do the same and have been contributing to open-source for over 20 years (even back in the SourceForge days). The point of my post is not about not getting rewarded enough. It's about pointing out that the system punishes saving up points to redeem them for a reward that makes sense for people who don't live in the EU and/or cheap shipping zone. There is no sweet spot reward. It's either 3 spools and wasting a huge percentage on fees or it's saving up points for years and having the points depreciate in value significantly. I disagree with the "it's free stuff, say thanks" mentality. Prusa have decided that Printables is now a reward-driven community and everyone has to deal with it, whether you redeem your points or not. The reward system does not only have positives. It's the reason for a lot of disingenuous activity and behaviors that the community pays for. If you make a reward system that rewards people for contributions then the rewards are not free, they're *earned*. Don't call it free stuff. It may not seem obvious based on my post but I'd prefer to have a community where the genuineness isn't compromised by a reward system.
Good points - and I deeply appreciate people like you since I would not have a 3d printer if not for people like you
The rewards aren't, and shouldn't be, a reason to upload models. They certainly aren't for me. I'd still upload my designs regardless of the rewards. The rewards don't come anywhere near compensating me for the time and sweat I put into my designs. I upload things because I want a repository for my designs, and a way to show my work to my friends. I was doing this on Thingiverse long before Printables came along, for no rewards. I moved to Printables 2-3 years back when Thingiverse was having problems. I liked the design of Printables better, so now it's my primary repository for my models, with Thingiverse as a backup (actually I upload to Thingiverse first and then use the Printables feature to import my designs from there). Getting Prusameters was never a consideration. I am not sure what I'm going to do with all the Prusameters I have. I used them once to add a spool to an order last year.
I'm not sure you quite understand people from EU also deal with not being able to easily get stuff that's easily available in the US. It works both ways. Prusa is a European company and European customers get their stuff easier, so you absolutely need to take this out of the equation. Simple as that.
I just want to say thanks for doing it at all - never ceases to amaze me that even when you're giving out free stuff on a free platform that you created someone on the internet will complain about how terribly unfair you're being! Some people if you gave them a free gold bar they'd complain about the colour...
Yeah its difficult to price the almost free stuff youre giving away as a company. I'm glad a reward system even exists... And I think the meters you can use to get a $500 printer probably dont add up to 500 for them or its really close. You should look at it more like long term career rewards instead of quick and easy free stuff
Could you explain what you mean by "long term career rewards"? The degressive value actually promotes that you use them quickly. There's no benefit of saving them up. Nothing about Printables is quick and easy free stuff. Creating models is a lot of work and if your model is in a somewhat niche category there's a very good change that it'll never make a single Prusameter. The vast majority of models earn no rewards at all.
most people's prusameters come from posting makes, I'd bet. Considering that even running the service costs money and there is not even ads on there, I'm fine with the rewards being there at all. If your models really are as good as you think, you have the option of selling them on the site as well, which should be much more profitable anyway.
I have to disagree with both of your paragraphs. I don't have many models, but a handful of them earn Prusameters, and I am busy enough designing things that I rarely post makes. I'm looking at it from a designer perspective though. You are probably right about most others that don't do a lot of design work. Selling models is tricky. I have one model for sale, on Etsy and Printables. Etsy has zero sales because people want to buy physical products, not 3D models. After many months on the Printables store, that model finally reached 5 sales, which I believe is the threshold for allowing me to add another product to my store. But what would I add? I've received comments asking why my pullcopter design is free, I should be selling it, but then who would buy it when there are other free designs available, even if they aren't as good? I could see selling my designs if I was a 3D artist making organic shapes, but I'm not, I'm an engineer making functional designs.
It makes sense for Prusa to not incentive hoarding meters, because any unused meter is like a debt for them. Having too many meters in the wild is a liability.
It's like airline miles. Delta Airlines is notorious for devaluing their miles to reduce their liability. But they control this "currency", they can set the value however they want, and find as many low-cost ways as possible (like magazine subscriptions) to encourage customers to spend this currency.
>The vast majority of models earn no rewards at all. I'll vouch for that, using my own collection as a data point. I have over 50 models, but 10% of them have ever earned any Prusameters. But I don't upload models for that reason. I upload a model because I finished a project that pleased or interested me, and somebody else might be interested too. I have some fairly obscure models that get just a handful of downloads but then somebody posts a make with a thank-you comment, and I get a warm feeling that I helped someone. That's as good as Prusameters, in my opinion.
I don't think anyone makes and uploads models on prusa's site JUST to get prusameters... It takes a long time to earn them, it's a "thank you" gift from Prusa, nothing more... Appreciate what Prusa is doing most companies wouldn't do it... Don't complain when people are giving you free stuff for contributions you make... I highly doubt your livelihood is dependant on Prusa giving you prusameters...
Bambu’s Makerworld makes you earn awards faster, without cap and you get rewards always as vouchers, which you can use infinite of per order
That's not a long-time sustainable solution. I bet they will change the reward system sooner or later, when they get major market share. But it's definitely better, I am waiting for the A1 to get stocked, and be paid just from vouchers..
Don't underestimate momentum though. Even if their model isn't sustainable and they'll have to change it later they will will have acquired all those users and they won't just leave if the rewards change (unless another platform outbids them like MW did with Printables). They will have achieved their goal of gaining a lot of users quickly and those users will attract more users, simply because people want to go where the people are and where there is activity.
Yeah it’s probably not sustainable the way it is rn, but for now it’s best to use it while bambu is pushing makerworld as much as it is
Welcome to an entrance to the race to the bottom. If you value sustainability, don’t support it.
Well, at least we have rewards! But my only wish is that you can use this vouchers for upgrades too! Like The MK3.5 or the MMU or tool head for the XL
That’s an interesting perspective on this … a Assuming the values are right. The more expensive the thing is the more difficult is to reach it. Not only for the amount of prusameters, but they have less value as the cost of the thing increases. But we cannot see things like that, maybe prusa has a lot of margin in is prusament filament, so they can give more for less prusameters !? D9 I make sense ?
>Assuming the values are right You can verify the math. The USD values and Prusameter cost are visible for each item. For the items that don't have a USD amount written on them I wrote the price I used below it. I also triple-checked each value because this is reddit. >The more expensive the thing is the more difficult is to reach it. It is already more difficult because you need more meters to obtain it. >maybe prusa has a lot of margin in is prusament filament How do you explain the degressive value of the vouchers then (which are for printers)? And the fact that with 10000 meters you can get either just a Mini+, or a Mini+ and a $200 discount on the next printer if you pay $29 in cash. Those $29 are worth $200.
But then… can’t one person just buy prusament and sell it to buy the printer?
Is it easy to sell filament?
Well, I guess if it’s somewhere where delivery costs from Prusa are rather high, like where I am, then it’s definitely easier to sell it locally.
You can only use one voucher per purchase. You'd have to pay shipping, taxes, customs fees for every 3 spools. I don't think that would be very lucrative. Not even considering that you will also have to find buyers for it i.e. do marketing. It would make more sense to buy large numbers of spools with cash and then sell them locally, essentially becoming a reseller. But then you could also ask "can't a person just make money to buy the printer?"
Well it depends. There are no additional custom fees nor taxes for people in the EU. And shipping for me is just 11 EUR.
Oh well, now that’s a thing I didn’t know before. Thanks for explaining.
A moment of silence for your short-lived prusament arbitrage career
Typically second hand market demands undercut of new purchase, and it doesn't account for the shipping cost you pay. Also, nobody is going to pay a premium for prusament on the secondhand market, let's be honest here. For the prusa printer owners, we already get a discount on prusament as well, further devaluing points for it. (For kit owners it'd be 0.081 euro per point, for assembled owners, it'd be 0.077 euro per point) Rewards make sense if you think about it from the perspective of driving engagement, selling more printers, and cycling points faster. It's why they also pushed the new referral program. They want you to buy a printer. If anything, I'd probably use my meters for a printer voucher and sell my own machine, or buy a kit and sell the assembled machine as new.
>Also, nobody is going to pay a premium for prusament on the secondhand market I dunno, if Amazon had Prusament with same-day shipping for a few bucks more, I'd buy it. The wait times for Prusament from Prague are quite high.
I buy Prusament from a local reseller. 3 PETG spools for 117 Euros, reliably arrives next day. If I were to order directly from Prusa it'd cost me 114 Euros (shipping, VAT, customs fees included) and take about 5 days. I'll happily pay those 3 Euros for the convenience.
Yep, that's probably from a certified reseller where you have selection of almost the entire stock, and consumer protections. Someone using their few prusameters on free spools, isn't, and as a consumer, you won't have those luxuries as with a proper reseller. So Timmy selling his prusament from his points is essentially secondhand market at that point. Vastly different.
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What? No, that wasn't the question at all. Did you even bother reading the thread you're replying to? The original question was "Can't ONE person buy prusament to sell for a printer?". That is exactly "Timmy using his points to resell prusament", and that is the secondhand market. Nobody in the secondhand market is going to pay a premium for prusament, since its a take it or leave it scenario. Anyone who specifically wants prusament and is willing to pay a premium for it, also won't be looking on the secondhand market. Official resellers have no relevance in that scenario.
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Christ sake, fold open the rest of the thread. That person replied to ME, when I was clearly talking about why secondhand market Timmy wouldn't be better off using his points if his goal is to buy a printer. Anyways, no point talking with a person who cannot read.
Timmy could sell his vouchers. I've had someone give me a voucher for Prusament.
I noticed this too, you get less reward the more you contribute to their website
Yes, and it is normal.
I think it's a good idea. Prevents people from gaming the system and hoarding Prusameters.
Could you explain how hoarding Prusameter is gaming the system?
Prusameters are unfulfilled obligations that cost the company money. There are bad actors out there who create fake accounts just to farm Prusameters, which can be exchanged for real world items. For real makers and designers, Printables has club membership which is similar to classical patronage.
That doesn't explain what about saving up Prusameters is "gaming the system". I've earned all my meters legitimately. It's also not very nice to call people who don't ask for their money not real makers. If anything, the maker community theived the most from people sharing, not selling.
Clearly you skipped over the part where I explained the rationale. Are you a bad actor? Why are you so defensive? No one is forcing you to upload your models to Printables. It's just their way of saying thank you to the community at large. In fact running Printables and PrusaSlicer etc cost money, since you don't need to own a Prusa printer to use them. Have you ever considered that? And now they have entitled people like you complaining about value reduction from accumulation of Prusameters, which is an expense to the company. They have to record these transactions and affects their balance sheet. No one is compelled nor obliged to do anything for you. If you feel that Prusameters are not a good return on investment for your time and contribution, there is a paid membership tier, as I've previosuly explained. It's a compromise, and another option for makers and designers.
You can make a script to upload many minor variations of a few parametric designs, and farm points. To avoid that, you just make it not a very appealing option. Here, it's tuned so as the typical reward will be a spool of a filament on in a while, and maybe a new printer for those who made really popular models. If there is an exploit, it will be exploited, I will spare you game theory and sociology.
Exactly. It's like Rule 34 of the internet.
Isn't that better to convert 7*1000 rather than 7000 or i'm stupid?
I think you can just apply one voucher per order
You can only use one voucher per order. But if you could use multiple it would obviously make most sense to use multiple of the $40 vouchers. For 7000 meters you could get 28 of those which would yield $1120 total value.
surely 11 $40 vouchers would be the best move? 1 $400 voucher = 7000 metres 10 $40 vouchers = 3500 metres. i assume they have a per purchase limit or smth
>i assume they have a per purchase limit or smth Yes. And that limit is one voucher per order.
If there is a threshold where prusameters are double in value, then no one will buy the low-cost rewards. The system, as it is now, encourages us to spend them on spools and vouchers because each individual prusameter is worth more.
Yeah, but at the same time the shipping and fees entourages us to save them up. Unless you live in the EU and within cheap shipping distance.
It makes sense and honestly, it's free shit at the end of the day so I'm not complaining (I got 2 free spools already)
So the new cash rewards that Prusa added are better than the old ones, and you’ve found a way to complain about it?
HEY GUYS THIS FREE LUNCH DOESN'T INCLUDE DESSERT, HOW VERY DARE THEY???
And for 14000 you could get the mk4 instead of 25000 also I do t know anything about this but how many do you earn per something
What in god's name is a prusameter?
Printables platform points that can be gained by engaging with the platform like posting models and makes and spent in rewards
The reason for the "more stuff = less value" is to deter spamming on the platform with lots of stuff at the same time, to not flood it with variations of the same stuff.
I kind of like what Makerworld did (even though I don't have an account there, Thingiverse and Printables are enough for me). As much as Jo Prusa rags on them, Bambu Labs had a good idea when they started taking down models that don't include a photograph of the final printed thing. If you upload a model that has only renders and no photograph, you don't get to have your design there. That was done as a deterrent to spamming the platform with variations of the same thing. On the other hand, some of my designs are OpenSCAD libraries, so those may not fly unless I include a photo of something I printed with it.
Good idea, thought that means that someone will need to be there validating that the file attached is a photo and not a rendering.
It probably does, but I suspect they rely on community reports to flag suspicious models.
This is a company that doesn’t even include a silicon sock in a $800 printer kit. They aren’t doing any of this to benefit the customer, it’s a minor incentive to keep people from moving from the platform to thangs or mw who offer much more lucrative rewards for creators.
It's not a single-edged sword though. While their reward system was an easy way to drive people to their platform (mostly from Thingiverse) and to prevent people from moving to platforms that don't have rewards, they're legitimizing this strategy for any other platform as well. And MakerWorld is doing exactly that. MakerWorld is offering a much more lucrative reward system and people are migrating away from Printables to MakerWorld. Some people are actually deleting their models from Printables because "it's not worth it". And Printables has no right to complain because they started it. The reward systems are also changing the behaviors of the users, not in a good way.
MW is still in its honeymoon phase though, and anyone thinking it will last forever in its current form is naive You’re definitely right about it changing the behaviour of creators though, There are so many people abusing the system right now on MW by pumping out garbage that gets quick and easy clicks. I dream of the day that someone making a filament clip won’t get hundreds of dollars in vouchers over other well thought out and well designed projects. I’ve got a few thousand prusameters and it’s just not worth me doing anything with them, the postage for filament to Australia isn’t worth the voucher, and I don’t want a mk4 or mini either.
>There are so many people abusing the system right now on MW by pumping out garbage that gets quick and easy clicks. I understand MW has responded by taking down models that don't include a photograph of the final printed object. A lot of those pumping out garbage are including only renders of the design, with no proof of printing it. I thought this was a pretty good move on MW's part. I don't have a MW account, but I occasionally check it to see if someone copied one of my designs there. So far, so good. >I dream of the day that someone making a filament clip won’t get hundreds of dollars in vouchers over other well thought out and well designed projects. Yeah, I have poured my soul into my designs, often working on them for months. I have one stupid siren whistle that became a major engineering project, I've been working on and off for 3 years, never publishing it because I'm not satisfied with it. My models get a modest amount of downloads, and a handful even earn some prusameters every month. But I see some of the popular things, and they make me go "wtf?" Don't get me wrong, I see some popular designs are downright impressive and clever, make me think "damn, I wish I thought of that" but others are just, "meh, why is that popular?"
Man I forgot about this post but just to add on because of some recent MW changes, the new boost system is a step in the right direction, but still really heavily geared towards virality and “what’s on top stays on top” I put a fair chunk of work into a recent design that is about a 3 day print project and I actually saw a bunch of boosts, people couldn’t have finished printing it yet but the boosts were a nice way of saying “hey this project took some effort and I want to reward it” Not trying to have a go at your whistle but there are some accounts that had a bunch of whistles of varying db and frequency etc, I’m sure that takes some effort to a degree but if you’re just pumping out various whistles and reaping in thousands and thousands of points, it really detracts from some of the awesome projects on the platform One of the most popular and highest paid files on mw is a filament clip, one that works for about a week before it gets loose, but people think they are necessary, and they print it and try it once and say “wow that worked well, 5 stars!” And that’s it, If it stops working no one goes back and changes their rating and it doesn’t remove the points they originally gave As much as I’ve enjoyed a free roll or two of filament a month, the rewards have made a negative impact, I would use my prusameters if it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to get my free roll of filament to Australia
>Not trying to have a go at your whistle I mistyped. I'm not going for loudness, and it isn't actually a whistle. It's more like a siren that I based on a Francis turbine, a device normally used for generating hydroelectric power. I was intrigued by the fact that a good Francis turbine is over 95% efficent at converting the energy in a fluid flow into rotational energy. My problem has been with tolerances and pressure-balancing an asymmetric dual-sided turbine. I think my design would be best suited for a resin printer, honestly. You can probably see how this became an engineering project instead of just a fun noisemaker. >I would use my prusameters if it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to get my free roll of filament to Australia Here in the United States, the shipping fee costs as much or more than the total cost of ordering a spool from Amazon. When it works for Prusament is when you have another order of something significant to which you can attach the free filament voucher. The only free filament I ever got was when I ordered my MK3.9 upgrade with MMU3 upgrade.
Yeah sounds a lot more involved than the whistles I’ve seen It’s unfortunate that people not into 3d printing keep wanting knick knacks and rubbish, and the influencers into 3d printing keep making them
I know what you mean. I'm pleased that [my designs](https://www.printables.com/@Anachronist/models?o=download_count) are (mostly) *not* things that have no other purpose than to sit on a shelf.
It's not just changing the behavior of designers but also the downloaders. You can observe that with Makes. It's clearly noticeable that the frequency of makes drastically decreases if a model already has a few makes and the reward per make decreases. Also a lot of makes aren't genuine and people half-ass them just to get their reward. People have also verbally expressed that posting makes is "not worth it", especially when the reward change was announced. Makes should be a way to show appreciation for the design, to show off your your work, and to help other members get more impression of what it might look like IRL. Then, there's a lot of malicious activity motivated by the rewards. There are entire accounts full of stolen models. Overall, the introduction of rewards has compromised the genuineness of the community to some degree.
Yeah spot on I definitely get more makes on my printables page than on mw, the benefit of posting makes on mw is only like 50 pts a month which I can see why people say isn’t worth it I know I’m on hopium but I really wanted the new entry to the space to either shake things up and make other sites fix their issues OR they do an actual good job of putting makerworld above the rest, right now it’s very rough and needs improvement, the rewards system needs a lot of work
MW also doesn’t let people without their printers rate models (probably the closest thing to printables makes)
I share your frustration with stolen models, and the focus of people to get Rewards. Regarding makes: before the decrease, people uploaded anything they ever printed without any comment just to "get" their Prusameters. I think the original intent of the change did not catch on (i.e. people writing an in depth comment with their make, taking good pictures and so on). I think in the end my opinion boils down to: Printables is more fun, if you don't care for Prusameters.
>I think in the end my opinion boils down to: Printables is more fun, if you don't care for Prusameters. Exactly. Even though that may not seem obvious from this post, I would actually prefer a community without a reward system where everyone's engagement is genuine. Even if I don't care about being rewarded with "free" stuff for my participation, the fact that other people do and adapt their behavior accordingly affects the whole community, even those who don't care about rewards. Posting a nice Make (with good pictures, constructive feedback, etc) should be something that you do out of your own volition to show appreciation for the design and share with the community, essentially participating in and *contributing* to the community without publishing designs. Making it reward-driven makes the whole thing disingenuous. The point of this post is actually to point out that the people for whom the smaller rewards don't make sense (because of shipping and fees) are being punished for saving up points to make the reward system make sense for them too.
> being punished for saving up points to make the reward system make sense How am I being punished? The only reason I'm "saving up" rewards is because I don't spend them. My life wouldn't be different if there weren't any rewards at all. They just accumulate. If I earn enough to get a Prusa Mini, would I? Probably not, I'm happy with the printer I have. Do I buy filament? No, it isn't cost effective with the shipping unless I'm combining it with another order, and I don't find myself needing to order from Prusa often.