  With the continuous growth of online 3D printing community and the
democratization of 3D printers, growing number of users start sharing their own
3D designs on open platforms, enabling a wide audience to search, download, and
3D print models for free. Although sharing is mostly for altruistic reasons at
first, open platforms had also created potential job opportunities to
compensate creative labors. This paper analyzes new job opportunities emerged
in online 3D printing social platforms and patterns of seeking compensations,
and reveals various motivations for posting creative content online. We find
that offering exclusive membership through subscriptions, selling final
products or printing services through web stores, and using affiliate links are
primary means of earning profits, while there exist gaps between creators'
expectations and realities. We show that various socio-economic promises
emerged, leading to a win-win situation for both creators to gain extra income
and audiences to have access to more quality content. We also discuss future
challenges that need to be addressed, such as ethical use of opensource
content.
