I'm Pretty Much Done w/ 3D Printer Reviews
So, this is going to be a very different video from my usual ones. It's kind of one big, long, pretty negative rant, and if I'm honest, I'm going through a kind of a rough week as it is, personally, so I do apologize if I come off as negative, whiny, or entitled. But, I think I'm probably done doing 3d printer reviews, and in this video I want to take a quick moment and talk about why but more specifically I want to clearly outline where I stand on the ethics, not just of 3d printer reviews, but also how I do and do not work with sponsors on this channel going forward. Along the way I also hope that I can give all of you some insights into the ethical dilemmas and challenges that content creators like myself face, and also open up a dialogue. A lot of this is personal emotions, thoughts, and opinions that have been kind of rattling around in my head for a while, and I really just want to get them out there so I can hear all of your feedback.
But I also want to share some of my suggestions for how we as a community can ensure the survival of the creators and the channels whose reviews we depend on, and then I kind of just want to move on. So, let's get after it. Alright.
So, ultimately there are a lot of reasons as to why I don't want to do reviews, or even necessarily overviews, anymore. The first and probably biggest one comes down to I don't know what to call it, honestly. Needing to be liked, caring about friendships, people pleasing.
Basically, I personally have a really hard time separating the personal affinity that I've developed for many of the manufacturers and people at those manufacturers that I've met, hung out with at events, broke bread with. People who've helped me in many ways, who's spouses I've met, who've played with my kids. Even though I know that being critical of their products ultimately benefits them, and of course, all of you. I often catch myself being overly forgiving, making excuses for them, things like that. It's just too difficult for me personally to separate that personal from the professional.
What's more, I really like getting to know these people. I like hearing their stories. It's the reason I started my podcast, and it's the reason that I fly to events like SMRRF on my own dime, even though I know there's probably not going to be enough content to make a video out of it.
I'll let you in on one little secret that probably doesn't come as a shock to anyone. My entire life, I've struggled to fit into social groups or communities. There have really only been a handful of communities that I've found in the last 38 years where I actually feel a natural draw and connection to the other people.
I actually recently found out that I exhibit an alarming percentage of the traits associated with autism spectrum disorder, though, I'm not diagnosed, hence the rough week. And in my day-to-day life, I'm often told by those closest to me that I don't show nearly enough interest in getting to know other people. But with makers like you and 3D printers and fellow content creators, it's very different.
I really enjoy getting to know the people behind the projects and the products. I find it much easier to bond with people when it's over creativity and creation. And I couldn't possibly think of keeping a distance from people who have the potential to become friends just so that I could stay objective enough to review their products or projects.
And to be clear, I know that my duty is to my audience, not to these brands. I know that the only reason that I get to do this for a living, and I have this incredible dream job, is because of all 182,000 of you, not because of 50 people at 30 companies. After all, if it weren't for all of you tuning into my videos, let's be honest, I probably wouldn't even be a blip on the radar of those 50 people or 30 companies. But as I'm sure you can imagine, 50 people whose hands you've shaken at many different events over the years, whose families you've met and who've sent you gifts for your kids, can sometimes be a much louder voice in your head than even 182,000 people that you haven't had the privilege of meeting yet.
I don't like that, but I guess it's one of those cognitive bias type things, and I fall especially prey to it. Then, there are the dueling forces of ethics versus economics. To pay for the costs, or at least the opportunity costs, of producing something like a peer review, you need to find a sponsor willing to pay to advertise on a video about someone else's products, which almost inevitably means pushing something unrelated to your audience like SquareSpace or mobile games or some VPN, which I don't really like to do, and a little inside baseball here also pays really, really poorly.
Well, except for PCBWay, they both pay fair rates and they offer a complimentary services that actually benefit our audiences, and they're a joy to work with. And I actually wrote this entire video without a sponsor spot, and then I changed my mind because I actually really quickly want to take a second here to show some love and recognition for PCBWay, and I want to tell you why all of you owe them a bigger debt of gratitude than you might think. No, I'm not going to tell you about how they make PCBs for you, or they can do sheet metal fabrication, or metal 3D printing, blah blah blah. You've heard me and a hundred other creators in this niche say it a million times before. And that's exactly my point. I want to thank PCBWay, not just for sponsoring this video, but for sponsoring so many videos in this niche.
No matter what it is, PCBWay is just out here supporting this community, making it so that we creators can put bread on our tables, no matter what type of content we want to make for all of you. So do me a favor, and we'll talk about this later in the video when we get to solutions, but visit the link in the description and consider ordering some parts from PCBWay today for whatever project you're currently working on, or just check out their library of shared projects and order one of those, which also supports the designer of the project. You guys simply do not realize how much this community benefits from their tireless support of so many of us content creators, and if they ever were to decide that it was not profitable for them to advertise here on YouTube, we are all going to be so much poorer for it. Anyways, if we want unbiased reviews, what we need is more sponsors like PCBWay, or Voxel PLA, or Magigoo - companies that offer complimentary products and services without having a dog in the fight.
Because let's be real, to eliminate any and all conflicts of interest for review purposes, one would have to never have taken any money from any 3D printer companies themselves in sponsorship or affiliation, ever. Otherwise, you might give one company a worse review to drive more traffic to their competitor who has better affiliate terms. Or, because their competitor has sponsored you in the past, you may have a subtle, unavoidable bias towards that competitor's product over the one you're currently reviewing.
You get the idea. And so to be a truly unbiased reviewer, you need to never take any money from any 3D printer companies, and that's just not feasible. Like, you cannot run a YouTube channel in this niche on AdSense and merch alone, and many barely make it work even with sponsorships and affiliation. This is why the majority of the creators who are willing and able to actually do high quality, fair, and unbiased reviews, folks like Aurora Tech Channel, ModBot, Clough42, 3DPrintSOS, Robert Cowan, My Tech Fun, and The Print House, are all not full time content creators.
They all have day jobs or are still living with their parents in the case of Aurora. This is also why I assume some of the most respected review channels, including Aurora Tech Channel, are now allowing companies to sponsor videos of reviews of their products. And that might sound like a huge ethical no-no to you, but I'm not so sure it is, and I am going to discuss it later in the video, again, when we talk about how we, as a community, can do more to ensure that we keep getting high quality reviews and that review channels remain sustainable. But for now, let's say that you can hack it without money from the 3D printer companies.
Say you get a really great filament company to sponsor all your videos, or you're just independently wealthy. Great, unless you're a dedicated review channel deliberately doing a service to the community in favor of growth or sustainability, it's still kind of a lose-lose most of the time. First of all, a review video, at least here on my channel, will get far fewer views than a project video because it will only appeal to the people actually considering purchasing that product.
What's more, if you have a negative opinion and a negative experience of the product, or you're just critical, you will inevitably be accused, keep in mind, by people who have never even tried or seen the product themselves, of being biased towards other brands like Bambu or Prusa that you favorably reviewed in the past. If you're perceived as being too critical, you will then become the latest in a long line of 3D printing content creators who no longer get sent printers from certain brands. Because I don't know if you've noticed, but there's always a new crop of up and coming content creators, which is a great thing, of course, but they are naturally absolutely stoked to be getting their first or even their fifth free printer, which of course makes them biased in their own way. But what I'm saying here is that it is much easier and safer for brands to just never send printers to a reviewer, who has been in their eyes, not generous enough in the past. But if you depend on the affiliate revenue from big launch events like a Bambu Lab launch, or even if your channel only depends on reviews of those printers as a source of views, getting voted off the island from one of those big brands can be an absolute death blow. So arguably, even if you don't sign up for those affiliate programs, you are still biased towards generosity just to protect that relationship.
And that's not even considering the social pressure of potentially being excluded from things like the invite-only dinners that some brands put on during 3D printing events, where you know all of your friends and colleagues will be. You know, the breakfasts where you get extra time to ask the CEO himself some questions or film some extra B-roll before the rest of the world descends on the product. And maybe you even get a chance to talk about some more printers or some filament for that upcoming project that your audience is so excited about. But actually forget about the business side of that whole moral quagmire for just a second, and let's just consider the human and emotional element of that. I've heard evolutionary psychologists, I'm actually a sociologist myself by education, say that one of the key reasons that we mammals even evolved a sense of conscience is because for millions of years being kicked out of the group meant certain deaths. And if you've ever been kicked out of a friend group or not invited to a party all your friends were, I sure have, you'll agree that it still feels like certain death.
Now, I'd love to be able to tell you guys that I'm not the type of person who's affected by this stuff, but I am. It's only human and it does not feel good to be left out when all your friends are somewhere else. So, in addition to being independently wealthy enough to never take any sponsor money, add to the list that a truly unbiased reviewer kinda needs to be a sociopath who doesn't care about being ostracized from their friend and peer group. So that's the challenge with being critical, but what if you say something good? If you have a genuinely awesome experience with the product and in your heart of hearts, you absolutely love it.
You're still not off the hook. You'll inevitably be called a shill, you'll be held up against another reviewer who received a faulty unit or just has differing opinions, and you'll be wrongfully accused of the literal crime of taking undisclosed sponsorship compensation. And sometimes, I gotta be honest with you guys, I have a really hard time separating between the standard, kind of harmless, chill comments, and the ones that are actually anti-semitic dog whistles.
So that's fun. Now, I'm not the kind of person to get upset by the comments section, and I realize that those comments are probably, definitely from a vocal minority. But they can be disheartening when you consider just how much work a proper review is.
Yes, there are some reviewers who will put out a video two days after or even the day of receiving the printer just to get that jump. But any reviewer worth their salt, in my opinion, needs to put at least 80, 100 hours on a printer testing every possible feature and a wide range of materials before he or she can legitimately post a review. I've had way too many printers that were absolutely perfect for the first week, then they fall apart. A good reviewer needs to abuse the machine. They need to inspect the quality of the components. They need to try and predict longevity, test the dimensional accuracy and the strength of a wide range of prints.
Test cloud functionality, smart features, wear and tear, and on and on and on. And all that takes a lot of time. You know, Everson from Geek Detour, who's been doing this much longer than I have was telling me that reviews used to be a lot of fun when we would get like one new printer every couple of years from a brand, then you could easily afford to spend six months to properly review the product at your own pace. These days, you don't even have six weeks. There are new printers coming out literally every single week.
So the printer that shows up at the studio today, that thing is old news and uninteresting to your audience in like three weeks tops. There will, without a doubt, be someone else willing or able to publish a review, whether thorough or not, on launch day. And they will already have captured most of the already meager views and of course, the affiliate revenue. So, there's actually a perverse economic incentive for rushing out a review.
There just isn't enough time to be thorough, even when the printer works perfectly right out of the box. And let me tell you, 90 percent of the printers that show up here do not work perfectly right out of the box. Not even close.
In fact, this is probably the number two biggest reason why I'm just done. I've often lamented with other content creators that most days, our jobs feel like 30 percent content creation, 70 percent unpaid quality control and beta testing. You'd be shocked the types of stuff that comes up. Misconfigured firmware, almost non-existent profiles, or profiles so bad that you'll get comments questioning your authority or expertise if you use footage of any of the prints in any of your future videos. Basic features like bed leveling that just don't work.
Pre-production parts that break, warp, or catch fire. Yes, all of these things have happened, and not just to the brands you might be thinking of, even the most reputable brands have some pre-launch hiccups sometimes. Because these brands are also fighting a battle between getting the printer in your hands early enough in their launch process so that you have the time to actually do the review, which I super appreciate, versus shipping you a final and finished product that is an accurate reflection of what customers are going to get. But whether or not their intentions are good, these types of issues inevitably delay reviews, and they waste hours of the reviewer's time, and they add immense stress with regards to deadlines. These issues can sometimes take so much time that some of us have even considered adding clauses to our contracts that charge an hourly fee for any time spent fixing or diagnosing problems beyond the first hour. They also present a whole new type of ethical dilemma.
How do you present this flaw or shortcoming to your audience? You see, the manufacturers always have the same answer. Thanks so much for bringing it to our attention, it'll be fixed in production. But do you trust that it actually will be and give your vote of confidence to your audience, putting your reputation on the line? Do you tell them to avoid the product until you get another review unit in, therefore, spending more time to revisit the machine? Or do you pass the buck, expecting your audience who gives you the immense responsibility, and it is an immense responsibility, of looking to you as an authority on how to spend their hard earned money, do you expect them to just do their own research on the issue and see if it's cleared up before they order the product when it does go on sale? In which case, what the heck kind of value are you offering in the first place? And also, doesn't it kind of depend on the type of issue? Sure, a part catching fire, that's a clear cut red line.
I am not cutting the brand any slack and I am shouting that from the rooftops not to buy it until they prove to me that it's been fixed in all production units. But imperfect profiles? Cloud functionality not working yet? An imperfect first layer? Where do you draw that line? I can admit that I have often been far too optimistic and trusting in this regard, taking the brand at their word when they tell me that it'll be fixed, and reporting that they told me so in the video and I have reason to believe that they'll actually do it, only to hear from my audience months later that the production unit still has the same issue. I like to be a positive and trusting person. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's how I live my life. But let me tell you, knowing that someone went out and spent their hard earned money on a product because I said I believed it would be fixed at launch, only to discover that I was lied to, and therefore, someone who trusted me was let down.
Yeah, that's not a good feeling. Yeah, it's a lot. And I'm not even done.
So let's see, we covered the relationships, the fact that nobody really wants to sponsor the reviews, the fact that reviews get far fewer views, the whole relevancy versus thoroughness conundrum. We talked about the tremendous amount of work, the frustration of being an unpaid quality controller. We talked about getting called a shill one way or another. We talked about the tremendous responsibility. What am I missing? Oh, yeah, I just don't really enjoy doing reviews.
I know that there are many folks out there like Daniel from ModBot, or Fedor from 3D Print SOS, or Jerry from The Print House, who really enjoy getting under the hood of a new printer, taking it apart, putting it through its paces. I just don't. I do like doing roundups of all the latest printers and comparing them and sharing my kind of high level thoughts, but I think you guys know me well enough to know by now that I don't like to go too deep on any one thing. I'm a generalist. I have ADD, I jump around. I don't really want to spend an entire week or two of my life rigorously testing just one printer, so there's that.
Also, I don't need any more 3D printers. I don't have space for any more 3D printers. Now, don't get me wrong, I am never going to stop being grateful and appreciative for that privilege, or the privilege of actually earning money for playing with the latest and greatest 3D printers on the market, and then doing what I really love, which is making and sharing projects on those 3D printers with all of you. Where I live, with things being so expensive, I probably wouldn't be able to justify more than one of the printers I own, if I had to buy them for myself. So I realize that I might sound a bit privileged for what I'm about to say, but in economics, there is a concept called diminishing marginal return or utility.
Basically, the first bite of chocolate cake is sublime. The seventh, less so. The 70th, well, you probably won't even make it that far. Yeah. It is the same with 3D printers.
If you're a hobbyist with 1, 2, or even 5 machines, it would mean the world to you to get a brand new machine for free. If you're a content creator with 25 plus machines, particularly one paying as much as I do for rent in this studio, each machine is kind of a hassle, to be honest. So yeah, those are my reasons, and I think I got them all.
But now, let's talk about how I think we can all do better as a community. Obviously, we as a community still need reviewers, and we need high quality, honest reviewers. As you know from my open letter to the community last year, which I am happy to report seems to already be having some impact, I fundamentally believe that people deserve to be compensated for valuable work. Huge idea, I know. I believe that if someone is making valuable contributions to the community, then they shouldn't be bearing the cost of those contributions.
We should. So here are just some quick thoughts that I have as to how we can improve the economics and the conditions around high quality reviews so that we continue to get them from the content creators that we depend on, and by the way, if you're one of those content creators, I welcome you to tell me in the comments if I've misspoken for you, if I don't represent you, or if you disagree with anything I have to say. These are just my ideas based on how I feel and nobody else. Number one is to directly support creators who do reviews. As a viewer, keep in mind that review channels need to turn down a lot of revenue opportunities like sponsored videos, in order to stay unbiased.
Some even go so far as to not use affiliate links. So if you appreciate the reviews that a certain creator puts out there, please consider supporting them on Patreon or YouTube memberships, or even just sending them a super thanks. Number two is to support sponsors that make reviews possible. As I mentioned before, there are limited options when it comes to companies that will pay a creator to review another company's products. So, when you do see a creator sponsored by those types of companies, companies like PCBWay or Voxel PLA, even FlexiSpot, please consider using the creator's link and shopping with those brands so that those brands will continue to renew the contracts and keep financing the review content that you enjoy.
Number three is to support late to the party reviewers. One of the things I mentioned is that the folks who really take their time and be thorough and do long term reviews, rather than succumbing to the immense pressure of launch day buzz, generally get screwed for it. So if you can find it in your heart to not only watch those late to the party review videos, but also consider shopping using their links or just sending them a couple bucks using the super thanks feature. That way we can hopefully incentivize a shift away from reviewers feeling rushed to get a review out before they're really ready and towards a sense that it really does pay to take your time and do it right. Number four is to normalize review fees. Maybe.
This one, I'm not too sure about, and I think it needs to be a discussion. But as I mentioned before, some creators, such as Aurora, have begun allowing companies to sponsor the review of their printer, and from what I've seen, the reviews have become no less balanced or critical. So my hope is, and I think this is one type of solution to many of the issues in this video, my hope is that folks at Aurora are charging something like a review fee with a contract that legally obliges them to find and point out any flaws in the product, i.
e. the brand is paying the creator not for the review video or their exposure, but as a kind of outside consultant to check their blind spots and share unbiased outsider's perspectives. In other words, the idea is to flip the conflict of interest on its head so that It actually mandates the creator to provide their full feedback, positive and negative, or they don't get paid. But I don't know, this is something that we as a community still need to decide on. Do we feel that the reviews are still valid? Do we not? And if not, then how are we going to replace that income for someone like Aurora using the previous two points? Number five is to normalize billing for repair time. Even if I don't enjoy doing reviews, like I said, we are lucky that there are still plenty of creators who do.
But you know what nobody enjoys? Doing unpaid labor to diagnose, fix, and consult on all the different problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place. Again, I understand brands and I appreciate that you want to get the review units in our hands as quickly as possible so that we are not rushed, but corners have been cut. That's why I advocate that we content creators normalize the idea of putting an actual clause into our contract that says basically the first hour of fixing, tweaking, diagnosing, et cetera is on the house, but after that, if I have to spend my time fixing the printer to get it to work properly so that I can do my job, you're either paying me an hourly rate or you're sending someone to pick it up.
It's only fair. As content creators, we are in the business of, get this, creating valuable content for our audiences. We're not in the business of unpaid consulting or repairing printers. Number six is vendors don't punish constructive criticism - reward it. I'm not sure there is a way to solve all of the social pressure and people pleasing issues that I led with, but if there is, it involves vendors actually praising and rewarding creators who find and point out flaws in their products, rather than taking them personally and blacklisting creators for them.
If, instead of banning a creator from future launches for a bad review, brands began to thank and maybe even reward creators for their honest and, of course, respectful and constructive feedback, then creators would not be afraid of being voted off the island. This could be as simple as, "Hey, we really appreciated you pointing out the things our engineers missed and doing it in a very constructive and respectful manner. So we would love to sponsor your flight to FormNext next year so that you can actually meet with the engineers in person and see how we fixed it." And as creators,
I think we also need to get better about telling brands, "Hey, it is not personal. I love you guys. I super appreciated and enjoyed hanging out with you last year at SMRRF, but I think you dropped the ball here and because I want to see you succeed, I plan to point that out both to you and to my audience in the video." Again, maybe not everyone is as affected by the social aspect or is as much of a people pleaser as I am, but those are just my thoughts.
And one way we could potentially change it. Number seven is to be kind. As I said, I am not the kind of person who gets upset by every comment. I don't think those people survive on YouTube, frankly, but comments like shill or how much did Bambu pay you to be critical of their competitors? Those comments hurt after a reviewer spends literal weeks of their lives, thoroughly reviewing a product for the good of the community, knowing full well that the video isn't going to be nearly as lucrative as a project video would be. It really hurts to have their integrity called into question.
So be kind. Remember that there is another human being on the other end who has done you and the whole community an incredible service by sharing their thoughts, opinions, and so on, even when it's not easy. Keep comments constructive and respectful. But now I want to kind of talk about like what's next for this channel if not reviews? And what else I would like to change in 2025 and going forward? Look guys, I'm not blind to the fact that my channel is sponsor heavy. I have a sponsor in every single video except for the two where it felt really ethically icky to insert a sponsor spot. I also do, or at least have up until now, do dedicated sponsored videos.
So let me be real with you guys. I simply cannot produce my videos at the level I do without sponsors. Sponsorship makes up over 40 percent of our revenue and that's revenue, which goes towards paying rent at the studio and paying the salaries of two full time employees who fortunately for me are based in the Philippines, not where I live in Israel, or I literally wouldn't be able to do this at all, probably. Lord knows that I don't have enough time in the day to do the projects, write and record the videos, raise my children, and take on the editing, administrative work, and all of that on my own.
But with all that said, I do think that at times I have ventured too far towards the side of sponsorships, particularly when it comes to dedicated videos about specific printers. Now, maybe I'm reading too much into, again, a vocal small minority, but I read just about every comment and I have taken note on the types of comments on those types of videos. In the past, I have tried to find creative ways to do those dedicated videos. Naturally, I never ever would call them a review. I clearly state them as what they are. I tell you when the brand has or has not had editorial approval.
And I also, I try to find a new angle, like a comparison or a challenge. But they are still not as widely liked as my normal videos. So at the moment, I'm reluctantly leaning towards turning down the vast majority of those types of dedicated videos. At least when it comes to 3D printers.
Mind you, those types of videos pay literally two to a breathtaking nine times. That's money that could go towards giving my employees and their families health insurance. That's money that could go towards a bigger studio, or actually having someone come in on a regular basis to help me keep the place clean and tidy, so I enjoy being here. And it's money that could go towards closing the gap between what I made in my last business, which was like, here, and what I make in this business, which is like here, but ultimately none of that matters because once again, I want to be very, very clear. It is my belief and my understanding that my number one most valuable asset in this business is your trust.
I don't have all kinds of defensible IP or patents or trademarks. I don't have inventory. I don't have exclusive distribution agreements. I don't sell 3d prints. None of that. I have you guys.
I have the fact that you trust me, you find my content educational and entertaining and you support what I do. Whether that's by watching videos once in a while, by liking the video, by shopping with sponsors, or even by becoming a Patron. Ultimately, if I lose that, I kinda lose everything. So, you guys are my number one priority. And no matter how big the checks are that get offered to me, and let me tell you, there have been some mouth watering ones in the last six months.
I want to make decisions that reflect my priorities. So now I want to turn it back to all of you. Not about the reviews. Unless something really, really new and really, really exciting comes out with like, no conflicts of interest, I'm pretty much done with those, in case you couldn't tell. But I will continue to maintain a spreadsheet of my kind of up-to-date experiences and unfiltered opinions for my Patreon supporters.
I turn to you, though, to ask about the dedicated videos. Should I stop doing them altogether? Do you have ideas for creative ways that I could do them as a win-win-win? Or am I overreacting based on a few negative comments and like, a 4 percent lower like to dislike ratio? As always, as if I even had to say it, I appreciate your respectful and constructive feedback in the comments below. Hey, thanks for making it this far into what was essentially a very long winded stream of consciousness rant. I really feel better having gotten that off my chest and I hope that my remarks and suggestions might help others out there who do want to keep doing reviews. So I guess all that's left is to say that's all for this week and I'll see all of you on The Next Layer.
2025-03-01 08:51
