this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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Before You Criticize People Who Bought Bambu (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/3dprinting
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tl;dr Don't hate on people who got tricked into buying a Bambu printer. Direct your hatred to Bambu itself.

We all know about the anti-consumer Bambu Printer changes by now. But I think it's important to remember not to make fun of people who already bought one. In fact, most agree with you that these changes are unacceptable. So those people already got kicked in the gut.

As someone who bought from Prusa instead of Bambu, I completely understand the feeling of "Ha, I told you so!" But spreading that on every post is actually counter-productive. Remember that most people who bought a Bambu printer did so because it topped every "best 3D printers" list, had tons of sponsored content, and were affordable easy-to-use printers. Not everybody heard about the potential for such anti-consumer changes to be made. And many who did know were often misled into thinking it wouldn't happen.

Instead of being critical of individuals, be critical of Bambu themselves. Bambu are the ones who screwed over tons of people who love this hobby. If we want to see 3D printing be an open-source style hobby, then we need to help people see the value in that. So if anything, this is the chance for you to make more people aware of good, open systems. If you make fun of people and point fingers at them, you are just making them defensive. Don't make them direct any hatred at you that could be directed at the company itself.

Hope this isn't too preachy. I just wanted to get this out there.

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[–] kitnaht 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

I run a repair shop, and don't own a Bambu Labs printer - also never will. I'm not their target.

However, out of the easily 100+ customers I know that use a Bambu; maybe 2 of them use a different slicer. Most people won't be affected by this change and it's only communities with enthusiasts like ours that will end up caring.

That said, Bambu printers are still a MASSIVE step ahead of even their closest competition. This probably won't stop me from recommending them to consumers in the future, because while I am a zealot; first and foremost concern is that my customers are able to print reliably and easily.

Additionally -- The community always figures this stuff out. Bambu Slicer is open source, and I'm sure it won't take much for them to get around this tiny little speed bump.

This was my initial worry with them to begin with, and it seems to have been founded now; but until someone comes up with a comparable ecosystem, at the same price and quality of Bambu Labs, then it's still a no-brainer to be purchasing them for 99% of people.

You should still get mad, be vocal, and complain - they've reversed course before on other things (Linux Firmware) - so enough of an outcry should poke them into doing something different.

[–] GroundedGator 8 points 1 day ago

As someone who does own an X1. I haven't yet tried the other options of slicer or gone deeper down the g-code rabbit hole. I've only had it a few months. I bought knowing that this was a possibility but did so because of the simplicity, quality, and not wanting to spend endless hours tweaking.

One oversight I did have was the possibility that this could eventually lead to a cricut type situation of having a subscription model to even use the hardware. This means I will not be upgrading and will be keeping a closer eye on the changes that are made.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What makes you think they're not going to do something worse in the future? Knowingly pointing people towards an abusive company is signaling to that company that this is fine and we're willing to bend over further.

[–] kitnaht 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Because I've seen every open source company I love do the same thing over time.

Makerbot. Ultimaker. Prusa.

Remember the "Dogbone" you have to break on the buddy-boards to be able to flash your own bootloader? None of you people stopped buying Prusa back when that happened...

This hasn't been implemented yet, so we don't know the full details - I'm gonna wait and see where the chips fall before being so reactionary. I'm also going to be a pragmatist, and not pretend that other machines out there don't exist. Bambu will have competition soon - the K2 already seems to be picking up steam, and Creality has a pretty good history when it comes to this kind of thing. There's plenty of competition in the market, and Bambu printers are good enough for most people for now.

Kinda like the Glowforge (a laser cutter) when it came out - it's got all the proprietary locked down stuff, and their users don't care. But real C02 lasers still exist, and are popular too. There's room for both.

I'm not discounting those users who bought, and then had a 'feature' removed. I believe that's terms for a class action if they don't allow third party slicers to be used; but I don't think that's the full story of what's going on here.