MakerBot

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MakerBot Industries, LLC was an American technology company specializing in the design and manufacture of 3D printing peripherals and accessories. Originally an offshoot of the RepRap project, MakerBot initially produced open-source kit printers and operated the public project repository Thingiverse, which MakerBot's founders created in 2008. In 2012, with the launch of it's Replicator 2 3D printer, MakerBot fully pivoted to closed-source consumer and enterprise machines. It was acquired by Stratasys in June 2013.

MakerBot

Basic information
Founded	2009
Legal Structure	Subsidiary
Industry	3D printing
Also known as
Official website	https://makerbot.com/

MakerBot was at one point, the market leader in desktop FDM 3D printers, but its market dominance was steadily eroded by an explosion in popularity of less-expensive, open-source competitors. Its closed-source machines and business practices proved to be unpopular with the largely DIY-focused maker community. Starting in 2015, MakerBot began to focus more on the enterprise and education markets, ultimately abandoning the consumer market by 2017. It also laid off hundreds of employees during this time.

On August 31, 2022, Stratasys finalized a merger between MakerBot and its long-time market competitor Ultimaker. The merged company is known as Ultimaker, with the MakerBot branding only retained for its Sketch line of education-focused 3D printers.

Consumer-impact summary

Overview of concerns that arise from the conduct towards users of the product (if applicable):

• User Freedom
• User Privacy
• Business Model
• Market Control

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Incidents

This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the MakerBot category.

Ditching open-source (2012):

MakerBot abandoned its original open-source business practices in favor of developing closed-source machines with proprietary components and software. The move was unpopular with consumers, and MakerBot began to lose its market share to less-expensive, open-source 3D printers over the course of the next decade.

Change to Thingiverse terms of use (2012):

MakerBot updated the Thingiverse terms of use, appearing to assert ownership over anything uploaded to the site, despite users being allowed to dictate their own usage terms under Creative Commons. The terms of use in section 3.1 currently state that "You retain all your intellectual property rights in your User Content. Company does not claim ownership in any User Content." These terms were introduced on January 3rd, 2023.

Accusations of IP theft (2014):

MakerBot was accused of stealing and patenting user-uploaded designs from its public design repository, Thingiverse. MakerBot denied wrongdoing and showed its patents were filed before the contested designs were shared, but the accusation highlighted ongoing concerns with Thingiverse's terms of use.

Sued for Smart Extruder unreliability (2015):

Makerbot was hit with a class-action lawsuit, claiming the Smart Extruder for its fifth-generation printers was deliberately engineered to fail in order to boost sales for replacement components. The suit was dismissed by the court, which decided that MakerBot did not mislead customers. MakerBot would later release a more reliable, albeit more expensive Smart Extruder+.

Products

This is a list of the company's product lines with articles on this wiki.

• Example product line one (release date): Short summary of the product's incidents.
• Example product line two (release date):

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See also

Link to relevant theme articles or companies with similar incidents.

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