Also good for composting and making room in your recycling bin
Oh definitely, I just think it’s easier to justify paying for a physical product than it is paying for a single file if you still need to manufacture it yourself. Still a valid business practice, I’m just biased toward “information should be free” and all that.
But it’s not just information, someone sat in front of their computer and put the work in to design it, then print it and iterate.
You’re paying for that process, and for the time and effort the person took to acquire the necessary skills.
However, there should be a noticeable price difference due to the easy scaling / replicatibility when distributing digital goods.
I’m with you insofar as the final product feels like it should be 3 bucks, not the file.
I replied to another response similar to yours so I won’t bore you unless you want to read more, but I mostly agree with what you said and I totally agree that the work itself to create the file is worth compensation. I’m just a penny-pinching bastard who would rather find out if the print is actually good before paying lmao.
Pay-what-you-want, donations, and subsidizing with a higher price for the final product makes more sense to me in terms of these kinds of digital goods, but that’s besides the point, and I’m no expert on this kind of thing.
Honestly I’d be willing to pay 5-8 bucks for the final product since it looks more polished than any of the free designs I’ve seen. But yes, fair points.
It’s $3 which is well worth the time saved by not having to design it from scratch.
Someone had to use their skills to create it, do you think they should work for free?
I don’t disagree, never said people should work for free. I recognize there’s a disjoint in believing good information should be free[ly accessible] and also that people deserve compensation for work, though. It’s just one of those contradictions I haven’t solved as far as my own beliefs.
More than anything I was complaining, like I said it’s a totally valid business choice, I’m just a penny-pincher lol.
I mean, buying things like clothes patterns and carpentry plans is definitely a thing. An stl is really no different.
That’s a fair point, I guess I think of digital goods in a different context.
They definitely deserve compensation for their work, and how they chose to do it is absolutely valid. I think I’m biased toward open source hardware where the labor of creating their digital files is subsidized by selling the physical product instead. I realize that’s a risk and takes more effort though, so I totally understand why they didn’t do that.
