Putting this here because I’m genuinely surprised I haven’t seen anyone talk about it, or the complications it might bring.
For those unaware, Shapeways, the 3D printing service, quietly filed for bankruptcy a few months back. If you check the site now, it looks like it’s still there, but none of the actual pages outside of their main page will load. You can’t access any of the listings or content made by any creators.
Now, this isn’t a big deal inherently. There are other places to get models printed and such. The service was convenient, but not strictly needed.
However
This website was also used as the main platform that a lot of creators uploaded their models to, and all of those files, which could previously be downloaded, are now inaccessible.
Now, to get to the point, I’m not suggesting that these models are gone, just that the main distribution point for them has now been removed. People who, say, want to make the Toa Hagah, will now no longer have the resources that were so easily linked to in the past.
(It’s also worth mentioning, shapeways wasn’t the only place that had custom pieces uploaded. I’m more referring to the issue of pieces that were specifically hosted there, and only there, of which there were quite a few)
So it sorta brings me back to my title question of, like… how do we source these? How could someone access them if they didn’t have them? How do we proceed now, with this resource gone?
I know it’s a vague question, but it sorta feels like the specifics of the issue vary depending on what the available solutions prove to be currently, y’know?
Edit: Also just to clarify, there is still thingiverse, where you can find a good chunk of stuff still, but notably not all of it. And the annoying thing is that it’s difficult to discern what is missing until you’re looking for a specific thing that isn’t there anymore.
