A Spanish software engineer has recently launched his beta of Prithly, a new 3D model marketplace. It has a very simple and user-friendly interface and as a way to draw designers in they currently aren’t charging them commission on their models. But do we really need a new 3D model marketplace?
For being a beta, Prithly is pretty straight forward and easy to use, I didn’t notice any jarring glitches or bugs, and I found downloading models to be pretty painless. It easily works as well as all of the other marketplaces, and personally I think it has a cleaner and simpler UI than most. It’s missing some of the bells and whistles, but those things come with time. Other than having a small inventory of models, Prithly looks to be a solid entry into the crowd of 3D model marketplaces.
As the 3D printing industry nears its one millionth consumer installation it enjoys a larger presence in the media and popular culture than it ever has before. Many people have started to understand that 3D printing isn’t just a fad or an expensive toy, but something that is going to be part of many consumers lives for a very long time. While the pool of consumers looking for 3D printers for personal use is still small, that hasn’t stopped companies from releasing more and more 3D printers. Mike recently estimated well over 200 models of 3D printers are currently available, which is, frankly, an astounding number for an industry this small.
While there has been some great success stories, and some spectacular failures, I believe the number of printers on the market is one of the core reasons that 3D printing is finally starting to catch on for consumers. Basically, competition has made companies get better at making 3D printers, and when advancements are made they tend to either be quickly purchased by the larger companies, or furiously duplicated and added to the next wave of 3D printers. But will the same level of innovation and competition aid with 3D model marketplaces?
Prithly does enough right that it’s clear its creator, Alvaro Garcia, has been paying attention to what works and what doesn’t seem to work with his competition. On the surface it works just like any other online marketplace, you create a profile, upload your models, set a price and wait for the downloads. However a big difference is the lack of model commission. Currently you keep 100% of each sale minus the payment processing fees, which would be less than half a dollar on just about any regular sized model. Prithly also has a nice feature that allows you to enter the make and model of your 3D printer into your profile and it will let you pre-visualize the model online within your printer’s build envelope. This will allow you to verify that the model will be able to be printed with your current machine, and save you the hassle of buying a model that you can’t use, or requiring you to edit the model drastically before you print.
It’s too soon to tell if Prithly will be able to go against the sites that have been doing this much longer, but so far I’ve found it to be impressive. That being said, I’m not a model designer, and a nice user interface isn’t worth much if there isn’t anything to purchase. It remains to be seen if they will be able to draw talented designers to their marketplace, but considering that currently you won’t be charged any commission on sales this is a pretty good time for designers to test it out.
