On February 17th, 2026, 4 employees of Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory held an AMA about MyMiniFactory’s recent acquisition of Thingiverse, and what the plans were for Thingiverse’s future going forward. I was unable to attend, but watched the recording and took notes here.
Note that these are not the exact words that were spoken during the livestream unless directly quoted, and I may have made mistakes or misrepresented certain information.
You should definitely watch it yourself if you want to know exactly what was said. They stated that a recording would be made available sometime, but the original cast was done here; you can watch the replay if you make an account. If I get a more accessible link, I will update it.
Here’s What I Heard:
Hosts:
Romain (Pronounced “Roman”) Kidd - New Thingiverse CEO, founding CEO of MyMiniFactory
Sasha - founder of MyMiniMactory
Arys - new CTO of Thingiverse
Rees - new Chief Marketing Officer of Thingiverse
Intro:
Sasha kicks the discussion off with a description of MyMiniFactory, and talks about “balancing free content and monetized content” on Thingiverse. There are many ways to do this, so figuring out the best way to balance free and quality things/ user benefit and creator benefit is the focus going forward.
He ensures us that Thingiverse’s transformation will be methodical, and is not trying to make quick cash in the short term.
The four pillars of MyMiniFactory are Sustainability, Purposefulness, Inclusivity, and Freedom.
MyMiniFactory has acquired Thingiverse, but he ensures us that it will stay “independent and separate” from MyMiniFactory. They’re here to “Invest in the legacy and future of Thingiverse, Listen to what creators and makers actually want, and Build with the community, for the community.” They also plan to “Learn; Stay humble, make mistakes. Improve.”
Romain then introduces his section of the presentation.
He has two intro topics:
“Thingiverse to remain free”
“Anti AI stance”
No plans to introduce paywalls; people shared their models for free and it will remain that way. Also noted that doing this would be legally dubious, as many are shared under Creative Commons licenses anyway. Thingiverse is more free and bigger than essentially any other platform, and they want to keep that.
It’s supported entirely by ads, but these are annoying to users. They ran a poll about a potential premium ad-free subscription:
Do you think $4.99/month for ad-free version is:
I wouldn’t pay anything - 58% (78 votes)
Too much - 18% (24 votes)
A fair price to remove ads - 23% (31 votes)
I’d pay even more to support an open platform - 1% (2 votes)
In general, the team is coming in with a stern Anti-AI policy; as many users have also expressed agreement with. However, some users don’t see the point in removing AI.
The team calls their Anti-AI policy SoulCrafted, which you can read more about from them here. They want quality projects, not just slop. In order to curate content, they want to curate creators. Internally they will be checking content for use of AI.
Their first step is/was to remove AI content from the homepage.
Going forward, their immediate focuses are:
New Categories; reorganizing categories around communities
New Profile; Help creators/makers showcase themselves
Library; better way to save/organize content. It’s currently hard for people to keep track of what they’ve downloaded.
Bringing back Thingiverse challenges. Potentially making challenges for different subcategories (like Printables contests, I assume?)
Q & A!
Q: Thingiverse has been around for a while, how are you going to proceed knowing that there are many other repositories out there that others can go to?
A: It’s not about just copy and pasting things from other communities and sites, but specifically how we can grow the platform for those who are already interested in Thingiverse. Thingiverse is already so well known. People’s hearts are already with Thingiverse, so while their content may have left, their hearts haven’t. We just have to get them to come back and start using the platform again.
Q: You said tabletop gaming has been very much a focus of MyMiniFactory, but might not work on Thingiverse. Does that mean that Thingiverse is going to be the non-gaming version of MyMiniFactory?
A: It’s true MyMiniFactory has been focused on value-added features for tabletop games, and it will continue to move in that direction. However, Thingiverse’s goal is not to copy/paste MyMiniFactory. The goal is to take the playbook that has made MyMiniFactory successful, and use it to develop new communities on Thingiverse with things geared towards them.
Q: Are you going to go for National Science Fund funding for Thingiverse? How will you go forward with changing the fabric of the manufacturing world, as opposed to just being another 3D listing site? For example, will there be anything on Thingiverse going forward which will allow people to get in touch with local Makers to potentially get custom parts printed locally?
A: Not aware of that funding, but on MyMiniFactory we’re introducing something like that where people who don’t have a printer can contact merchants who do to get custom parts done. That’s a potential for Thingiverse as well. I believe the future of manufacturing is on Thingiverse, and we may spread out to other formats of manufacturing as well.
Follow-up Q: Do we have any plans to introduce IP control licenses, beyond just Creative Commons ones? Are you going to have a taskforce to enforce IP?
A: One of our eventual goals and challenges is to get people together to make a community of 3D modelers, printers, and engineers, so we want to integrate and support those people as well as finding a good way to distribute the money between those people. The next RC car isn’t going to be developed and made in a factory, and the next rocket to Mars isn’t going to be developed in a research lab. They will be developed on Thingiverse.
Q: In the Ad subscription poll, the last suggestion is “I’d pay even more to support an open platform,” which had 2 votes. What does that mean, exactly?
A: The poll was just to see if there was an appetite for an ad free version. Lots of people understand that talented creators who upload for free on Thingiverse want to and should get paid for their work. We want to work towards getting more high-quality, finished products on Thingiverse. Some people are willing to spend money on those things, and sometimes makers only create those things with the expectation they will get paid. Some people may want to create things that are available for free, and crowdfunding might be good for those people. It all depends.
Q: Many times, we see companies like Thingiverse get acquired for the sole purpose of making money, instead of making the service better. So in an attempt to see if you are active members of the 3D Printing community, what printers do you own, and what printing do you yourself do on the side?
A: Arys: NI3 Mk 2S, Mk 4S, Snapmaker U1. For the last 3 years I focused on printing things for my daughters, but I also build furniture or fix things around the house, so I print things to help with my builds.
Sasha: Up(?) Mini at the start, and I printed the first 10,000 things that were uploaded to MyMiniFactory. I own a 500 anycubic resin printer farm, but it’s true that recently in the last 6 months I haven’t printed much personally.
Romain: First machine was a wooden PrinterBot in 2011ish, currently traveling, but as I head home I will have a FlashForge waiting for me.
Rees: First printer was a FlashForge kicking around the MyMiniFactory office that I commandeered, and used to print things like the board around my door. Now, my brother is a carpenter who I get to make things for me. Been trying to get another one, but they’re not too cheap.
Overall, though, I’m hoping that unlike your typical corporate overlords, we’re trying to do things like hop on AMAs to keep in touch with the community so we don’t abuse our market share.
Q: Thingiverse has always lacked easy to use and effective customization tools. Are there any plans to improve on that?
A: We definitely want to improve on the ability to collaborate, so that even ideas or proof-of-concepts can be uploaded for others to work on.
About 10 years ago, we implemented MyMiniFactory Ideas, which allowed people to submit ideas to the community for people to freely help with fleshing it out.
The Customizer on Thingiverse is a very popular tool, but we know it needs a lot of love. First, we need to figure out who exactly is using it and for what reason, and then we can develop it.
After we figure that out, we can move forward with creating improvements for it. What would you want to see it used for?
~I use it mostly for customizing boxes, but it’s not that user-friendly. I don’t expect it to be super in-depth, but I was wondering if maybe you could put a few more parameters into Customizer.
Q: Will Thingiverse continue offering free models, or will this be a shift to paid content?
A: We want to keep things free on Thingiverse going forward.
Q: How will existing Creative Commons licenses be respected under MyMiniFactory’s ownership?
A: We respect creators and respect the licenses they’ve chosen. We may add more licenses to choose from, but existing licenses won’t change.
By the way, MyMiniFactory started the Scan The World movement, in which over 20,000 artifacts, etc have been scanned and uploaded in high definition for absolutely free, forever. We have a track record of free, high quality content over there.
Q: What are your plans to remove AI content, given you have said you will be doing so?
A: We want to increase the quality of the content on Thingiverse. We want to make a community around people. Not robots, or algorithms, or things that will drag the platform down.
We want to bring more curation to the platforms. People can spam AI slop to overrun the platform, and we don’t want that.
Q: Will accessing already saved/favorited files change, and will the way submitting files and remixes change?
A: We’re not looking to change anything like that, but we want to make it easier to find things you’ve favorited and downloaded. We also want to give creators more analytical data to see how their models are doing.
Q: Are there any plans to change the infrastructure–search, UI, etc, perhaps to MyMiniFactory standards?
A: Yes, we definitely want to improve the UI. We have made a significant investment in the platform, so we want to continue to invest in it.
Q: How will Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory be merged, if at all?
A: They will remain distinct. While our “playbook” for MyMiniFactory will be brought over to improve Thingiverse, they will remain separate communities.
Q: How does the SoulCrafted philosophy translate to actual practical changes to the site?
A: It’s a focus on human creativity over AI; on MyMiniFactory you can apply to get your SoulCrafted badge by showing how your creative process is based in human creativity. We’re also developing an open-source SoulCrafted resin slicer.
Q: What about data, privacy, and our current accounts?
A: Your data and overall experience should remain the same as it is.
Q: What about Thingiverse use in educational settings; will users still have free and easy access to designs?
A: To reiterate, content will not be taken down, even if someone submits a takedown notice. In those situations, we go through the process of handling that and then take action when that has been resolved. Your content is safe on Thingiverse
Also, the data of MyMiniFactory is completely under our control; we don’t work with another service provider to store the data. This means that no other entity can give it up in our stead. Hopefully we can achieve that for Thingiverse, but that will take time.
On the topic of education, students in general are a big part of the platform. We want to continue to provide free and easy access for education, and hopefully figure out what’s best for them to continue to get a better service.
Q: What will happen to older designs that aren’t as well maintained on the site? Will those still be available, or will it be cleaned up?
A: Content will be reorganized, but not deleted. We don’t decide what’s good enough or not to be uploaded to Thingiverse.
Q: What mechanisms will be in place to continue to get feedback?
A: While Thingiverse Groups is the only thing we’re currently using, we plan on doing more AMAs in the future, perhaps with specific topics, like the Customizer, a potential app, etc. To be honest, Groups isn’t exactly user friendly, so we want to create a better method.
Q. What are the plans around the UI? If MyMiniFactory is the SLA site, will Thingiverse be the FDM one? Will a slicer be integrated in the software, like Printables?
A: The Soulcrafted Slicer is being worked on, and we do want to integrate it more into Thingiverse.
Q: Super happy to have AI slop go away, but how will we differentiate between what is AI and isn’t? And is it possible to monetize models by ad revenue?
A: As we said before, AI models will be curated out by humans, and ad revenue could be used more as a revenue stream, but we don’t know yet.
Q: How does the company think it is sustainable to maintain a free distribution of models?
A: Well, it already is sustainable by way of advertising. We also run a tight ship, and keep costs under control. We’ll need to see exactly what monetization strategies can be implemented going forward.
Q: Would it be beneficial to have an optional donation button to donate directly to Thingiverse?
A: Donate directly to Thingiverse? Maybe having the ad-free paid version would be a way to do that.
There might also be the option to donate directly to creators.
Q: Are you going to do more AMAs, and when?
A: We do have plans to do them, but we haven’t set a date yet. We’ll do this often, and maybe have set topics for certain ones.
Q: Are you going to plan collaborations with YouTubers?
A: We’ve actually had a few conversations with creators, and we’ve thought of using them as a relay to share information with the community for transparency’s sake. We’re doing collaborations and making content together.
Q: Where do you draw the line on AI? What about models that use it as a base and have significant modifications from then on?
A: We do want to acknowledge that there is a difference between the sculptor and the engineer. People writing code often use AI to write it, and platforms like OnShape have AI tools. The question is more about if you’re putting your soul into making things and putting them out there, vs just making slop.
Q: Back to the topic of physical manufacturing, are there any plans to let users connect with others to print things for them?
A: Thingiverse does want to be a bridge between something like a fab lab or workshops and users. We want to bring people together.
Q: Why don’t I recognize any of you from the Thingiverse TikTok?
A: It’s true we’re mainly from the MyMiniFactory team, but we’re working closely with the original Thingiverse team and you’ll see more of them on these AMAs if we perhaps do them a bit earlier in the morning.
Q: Is there any plan to restrict things like firearms, which might be banned via some legislation?
A: No current plans to ban anything like that specifically.
Q: Will there be cross-promotion between MyMiniFactory and Thingiverse?
A: Yes, but we’re unsure of what that will look like.
My Thoughts
Overall, I’m still cautiously optimistic about the whole thing. It does seem like the new Thingiverse team is genuinely interested in creating a platform that benefits users and creators, and isn’t just trying to make all the money off of it that they can before they drive it into the ground. They clearly have been reading the comments, inviting feedback, and listening to what the community has to say, but of course, whether or not they
a) continue doing this, and
b) implement everyone’s suggestions in a meaningful way
has yet to be revealed.
Also, I’m curious to know what direction they’re planning on taking the platform. Right now, Thingiverse is essentially just a free catalogue of 3D models, but the way some of the folks in the audience as well as folks on the board were talking, they seem to want to build it up into more of a collaboration space for engineering(?) At least, judging by the way Sasha mentioned that the next rocket to Mars would be built on Thingiverse, which didn’t sound like hyperbole when he said it, but… it has to be, right? Right?
Anyway, I managed to snag a 1:1 appointment with the CEO, so I need to start thinking about what exactly I’m going to talk about and how exactly I want to maximize the impact I can make within the half an hour I have. If anyone has anything they want me to bring up, drop it down in the comments below!
But for now, I’m going to share this article around and then go to bed. Hope I don’t accidentally wake up to a bunch of comments telling me I sent the wrong link out… again.