As I’m sure most of you are aware by now, Thingiverse was acquired by MyMiniFactory!
And unlike most corporate buyouts, it’s been mostly… fine? It hasn’t even been a month out, so it’s a bit early to call, but the incoming management team sure seems to be moving forward with the best interests of the users in mind; they’ve already done an AMA and let people ask questions directly, and I even got to meet with the CEO 1-on-1 to air my frustrations with the current site as it is as well as make suggestions for things I would want to see in the future.
So today, I’d like to talk about money.
I love money, don’t you? Pay the bills, go out to eat, have a shopping spree…spending money is great!
But you know what’s even better than spending money? Not spending money. And you know what’s even better than that? Getting money!
So in order to maximize utility on Thingiverse, I propose that all models be free to download, and all creators get fat checks at the end of the month as thanks for supporting the platform. Awesome plan, right?
The Dilemma
…Ok, ok. Silly as it was, that little ditty does a pretty good job of framing the issues facing Thingiverse at the moment. Given that they’re mostly in their “information gathering” phase at the moment, we haven’t been given much information on what specific goals they’re aiming to meet. However, if I had to spell out what the situation is based off of what I’ve heard so far, here’s how I’d do it:
Thingiverse is trying to provide a better experience for all current and potential future users, and wants to encourage people to/attract people who can upload quality models to the site. However, they’re stuck in the middle of two conflicting opinions: that of the consumers on the site, who want it to continue to be paywall-free, and those of current and future creators on the site, who either would like to be incentivized monetarily to produce better content, or who would actually start uploading their models to Thingiverse if they had a monetary reason to do so.
In other words, how can Thingiverse both provide incentives and rewards for creators to upload better content to Thingiverse, while also providing accessible free content to its consumer base?
My General Philosophy
Full disclosure: as a hobby-license user of Autodesk Fusion, I am definitely not allowed to sell the models I make with it, and as an educator I generally encourage people to remix and reupload my models anyway, which prevents me from selling them. But while I personally may not be seeking to paywall any of my personal models, I definitely understand that some folks absolutely need to sell their works in order to make ends meet, and those folks most likely put more time, effort, and skill into their models than I could even imagine.
That being said, I believe that Thingiverse should not lock any of its models behind a paywall of any kind. Thingiverse, as it is right now, is the only major 3D model repository that has no paywalls on the site whatsoever (at least, not that I’m aware of). Every other site has some combination of letting you post models that need to be purchased to be downloaded, or that are locked behind a monthly membership fee. I think the ability for Thingiverse to advertise itself as being a site where all models are freely available is an invaluable marketing tactic, and throwing that opportunity away by letting people upload paywalled content could be a big mistake.
Also, if people really, really want to upload paywalled models, they can be directed towards the site that acquired Thingiverse, MyMiniFactory. That way Thingiverse can have a good excuse to stay all free, because hey, if you want to paywall models, you can; just not here.
Accordingly, Thingiverse should look into other ways to compensate its creators without blocking out consumers. In this article, I’m going to discuss various ways I think Thingiverse can provide creators with the ability to get money; none of which restrict model access to paid users.
Pay What You Want
A relatively common strategy for indie software online is a “pay what you think is fair” window that pops up when you go to download the data. Basically, the idea is to say “hey, I think it’s important that this is available to people that might not be able to afford it, but it still took energy and resources to create, so why don’t you pay if you can?”
I know I joked that people won’t spend money if they can avoid it, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of people are mature enough to realize that cool 3D models don’t come from nowhere, and if they have the cash, will send some a creator’s way if they like what they make.
As for the actual implementation, I think it would be best to have an optional “support the creator” button on users’ profiles, and have a screen pop up when downloading files that says something along the lines of “your files are downloading! All models on Thingiverse are free, but if you want to support the creator that helps make this possible, you can donate to them here!”
Whether that be handled through Thingiverse directly or just linked to something like Patreon or Ko-Fi is up to the developers, but the most important thing is it shouldn’t too overbearing to the point of guilt-tripping people to cough money up, but not so out of the way that people forget or don’t realize that it’s there if they want to donate.
Crowdfunding
Digital content is unique in that although it does take a decent amount of fixed cost to create (time, energy, purchasing creation software, etc), the variable cost of making new instances of that digital content is essentially zero. No one needs to pay to download a new iteration of my model; they just Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and bam! It’s in their downloads folder.
So here’s a question: what if a digital good was sold for money until it made enough to satisfy the creator, and then was free after? And then what if that “profit” was paid before the model was even released?
Well, that’s essentially just crowdfunding, in a way. But while MakerWorld and similar platforms let users offer exclusive rewards that incentivize people to support the model, if I want to stick to my principle of not hiding things like models behind paywalls, the actual things made available for backers would have to be other things like perhaps early access, licenses to sell the model, etc etc. Or, potentially, you might be able to get away with not having the option for rewards at all. Similar to the “pay what you want” scenario, people understand that these things take money sometimes, and are willing to pitch in monetarily for the good of the community in order to get the model to be eventually released for free.
Anecdotally speaking, I know someone on MakerWorld that said they polled their fans to see if people would be ok with supporting a crowdfunding campaign with no rewards, and found decent support for the idea. Dunno if they actually tried that out or not, but that tidbit seemed promising.
Memberships
Again, while other sites implement this in some form or another, often with exclusive models and whatnot locked behind a monthly subscription, I think this could potentially have a place on Thingiverse without that. The difficult thing here, of course, would be finding incentives to get people to want to sign up.
One potential benefit would be to allow users to purchase a license to sell prints of the model while they’re subscribed. Many creators (like me!) may upload models free for personal use, but forbid people from using them for monetary gain. However, as long as someone is subscribed to a creator’s membership, they will be allowed to sell prints of those models, provided the creator enables that as a perk of membership and there are no other conflicting licenses (such as in the case of licenses inherited via a remix, etc).
Another cosmetic benefit could be badges similar to Printables does, where users that support large numbers of creators/creators for a certain amount of time gain badges, which contribute to their user level and show up on their profile.
Or perhaps Thingiverse should take a leaf out of Twitch’s book and let membership subscribers get little border decorations to put around their profile. For example, if you subscribed to me, you might get a little pumpkin with the number of months you’ve been subscribed displayed next to your profile picture if you so choose. This would not only allow some extra form of customization for your profile, but also provide for free advertising for creators when people with those decorations go out and comment/post makes on other folks’ models with other creators’ decorations.
Ad Revenue
To be upfront, this is the one that I’m cagiest on, as it’s the one that’s the most ripe for abuse. The idea is that part of the ad revenue the site brings in (I have no idea how much that is or if it will increase or decrease in the coming months) could be given to creators as thanks for their contribution to keeping the site alive.
HOWEVER, while just giving a portion of the ad revenue that is generated by users visiting each respective creator’s page might sound like the best option, I can already see the mounds and mounds of clickbait experts flooding the site to take advantage of this.
‘Cause as much as we want to think so, the best models don’t necessarily get the most traffic; the best-looking thumbnails get the most traffic. People click on models that look nice, maybe even download them, but quickly realize that they’re garbage–but it’s too late; they already saw the ads when they visited the page initially, and therefore “creator” has already secured their bag.
MakerWorld has been experiencing a similar problem with their rewards program; they ended up clearly detailing what exactly would net you points, and I guess people started doing everything they could to figure out exactly how to game the system to get as many points as possible with as little effort or human input as possible, and they had to be more opaque with exactly what gets you reward points.
In order to avoid this, I would recommend that rather than something as simple as page views determining revenue, have something more connected to actual quality content, like the number of people that come back to post a make. Moreover, it might behoove Thingiverse to attach a rating system to each model, where it prompts users to give the model a 1-5 star (or whatever scale they want to use) rating, which then would relate to how much of the share of the ad revenue pot they get.
The actual specifics, of course, depend a lot on information that I do not have access to as Just Some Guy, and will require experimentation in order to get it right. It’s definitely the most finicky idea of the ones I have.
Conclusion
Off the bat, I want to say that as Just Some Guy with an opinion, I’m definitely not 100% confident that my ideas here are the best for the site. I also want to acknowledge that there are probably many wildly different strategies that will be effective at taking Thingiverse in a better direction, but exactly 0 of those directions will leave everyone satisfied. As someone who has no plans to paywall models and really doesn’t print off others’ models anymore, the potential to be able to charge money or be blocked from downloading models really doesn’t affect me either way, but I know a lot of other people it would.
But that being said, once you start allowing people to paywall models, you can’t make them stop–at least without a huge PR disaster. So at the very least, I think Thingiverse should definitely try out free options first, and proceed to start rolling out paid content if their goals (whatever those end up being) don’t work out. You can always eventually open things up to paid content, but once the genie is out of the bottle…
On that note, however, that’s the long and short of my ideas! There are probably more monetization options that don’t involve paywalls that I haven’t thought of, so lemme know if you can think of anything else! Whatever happens, I hope the creators and users both have the opportunity to get an overall better experience on Thingiverse.