New Da Vinci Jr ($349) and Food Printer ($500) and SLA Printer

I want one of those SLA printers!

I'm surprised how much constant whining there is about the cost of the filament.  Is this just cheapness or short-sightedness?  XYZ is attempting to make mainstream consumer products, for non-technical people.  Yes, it's a bit early in the 3D printing game for that probably (in my opinion), but that's what their very obvious goal is.

With that goal in mind, they don't care about us, Joe Tinkerer.  They don't want us filling up their support inbox with problems from running all variants and materials of filament.  It's a very smart engineering decision to control consistency, predictability, and print settings by having users buy the same cartridges.  The cartridges also contain settings, and make sure the machine doesn't run out of filament mid-print.  In theory, any bum off the street can stick the cartridge in, and get "good" results.

They're doing this very well.  Their machines are attractive, well priced, and the software is pretty idiot-proof.  It's perfectly suited for their marketing target... Anybody USA, in the middle of the bell curve.

What aren't they doing well?  Keeping up with bleeding-edge printing technology.  Their slicing, firmware, feedrates, etc. all leave something to be desired, when analyzed by in-the-know technical people, like us.  But you know what?  THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT US.  Somebody you know, that has never 3D modeled or done anything very-technical in his/her life, will get one of these $350 Da Vinci Jr.'s for Christmas, and be the hippest kid on the block, printing out ho-hum quality objects from Thingiverse.  And they'll love every minute of it, and never know better.

People buying the hell out of these things, despite how pissed all the nerds are that the filament "costs too much", and the printing is "only as good as it was in 2010", is exactly what's going to get us all super-awesome printers for $300, in 10 years!

Re Awesomeness:
My whining is simply wanting my cake and to eat it too. As I've confessed in other posts I know its unreasonable for me to complain that I can effectively buy an open source Repetier firmware machine for $400 (that is at least 1/2 the price of its closest competitor) but that's human nature I guess.
I agree with you that it is a little early in the 3d game for a toaster approach to a 3d printer, and I think that is where the rub is; in that we are effectively beta-testers for XYZ's product and yet "they don't care about us, Joe Tinkerer". I run an effectively stock machine and stock firmware and control software. It was only 2 jammed cassettes, three "your cart is not recognized" and a couple of instances where XYZware insisted I was out of filament long before the cassette was really empty that I pursued 3rd party cartridges. I really wouldn't mind buying their carts if it was ONLY a matter of per meter cost. I've had far too much wasted time, filament and wasted prints due to their proprietary policy. I'll happily pay the 50~200% surcharge for XYZ filament IF their system actually worked, but when failed prints and cartridge recognition errors raise that to an effective 400 to 500% proprietary surcharge then I get cranky. 
Personally I have no objection them to making using non-proprietary carts difficult, as long as they don't make it impossible. I have no problem if they succeed in scaring 99.9% of their customers into using only XYZ filaments, but I believe that it would be short-sighted of them to squeeze out the tinkerers completely as ultimately it is our labor that will result in prints of increasing utility and function that will in turn generate more demand for their product.
I'd even be happy to pay them 2 or 3 hundred dollars for a something that would allow me to not only use non proprietary filament but have access to other close features of the machine as well.
I love my DaVincis, I think they're great, and I wish XYZ every success... but gosh... that filament cost is out of sight!!!!!

Yah! My first post! No longer a forum virgin!

The Davinci jr. doesn't seem like a great deal. You can get the Davinci 1.0 at many places for $399. The jr isn't THAT much
smaller...and still uses RFID embedded reels. WHAT I think they'll do is mark it to $299 street price very soon. That gives you street cred as 'least expensive factory sponsored full size printer'.....

The food printer (well..any) seems gimmicky. My wife is a retired chef and looked closely at them...but she said she could manually decorate 3x faster than the printer. She felt there wasn't much value to the printer. IDK...I don't cook or decorate.

boxcarmib - I'm of the same mind as you. Davinci is a great little entry printer that CAN BE hacked to make it better (or just for the fun of hacking it)....but for what it is...it's a pretty dang good deal.

Awesomeness - I had a Cube 1.0 and 2.0.....Davinci is a supercar compared to those dogs. The same exact 'write ups' and 'talking points' were used with to try and sell them (and the Cube 3.0). The Davinci, several people I know have them, works well at dropping prints in the system and getting usable parts out. The Cube only got close. The output is not a polished as anything I get from my printers (bone stock Davinci)...but then again, my next cheapest printer cost $1200 (Delta Orion). I do have (2) Craftbots coming but they are cheaper ONLY because I got in on the Kickstarter deal.

I don't actually own a Davinci....well, I will Tuesday.

New Egg has the Davinci 1.0 with (7) cartridges for $469 (Premier Member) or $499 (guest)....that's total shipped!! Mine will be here Tuesday

I'd definitely be interested in the food printer, but given XYZ's approach I'm guessing you could only buy the food cartridges from them. That really removes the appeal for me - I'd dig using it as a tool for experimentation in the kitchen and could see being able to create some pretty wild stuff, but I just can't see anyone who would pay the money for it actually wanting the food printer if they don't have full control over the system.