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.
You must log in or register to comment.
Yes.
You shit on the individual asshole executives. Not the people who got screwed. Not the company, which has no agency and can do nothing. The individual executives, including the board of directors.
Luigi has taught us well.
I don’t think the printer got any worse …
I’ve put it in LAN mode, blocked it’s internet access in my router and I don’t plan to ever update the firmware. Also using orca slicer instead of bambu studio.
Prints perfectly fine. Worth every penny from my point of view.
( I agree though, that their move is extremely shitty and I won’t be recommending it to others because of that )
Glad to hear you’re able to keep using it! No reason to get rid of good hardware. I hope other people do the same.
They are good printers. It is just a crappy company showing their true colors… Which is sad for the consumers. Consumers are just the victims here. I never bought or owned a Bambu though. I always went with Prusa and now moving to Voron.
Most of the people posting angry rants about this news are not Bambu owners. On the other hand, most Bambu owners have no idea anything has changed, because we didn’t buy these printers to mod or install custom firmware on or use whatever slicer tickles our fancy this week, we bought them because they Just Work™, work great, and are very reliable. I owned a hobbyist machine before and I just don’t have the time anymore. I knew exactly what tradeoff I was making when I purchased from them, so condescending assholes can keep their patronizing I Told You So to themselves: this is not for you, you have other options and that’s OK.
Side note: I also run Windows and Linux on my PC. You can diss Windows all you want but it has its uses and you’re not winning any friends outside the Linux circle jerk community by being a raging asshole about it. The Bambu hate feels exactly the same.
The people that own them will definitely notice if they start making features require a subscription or deciding that you can’t print certain objects.
For those out of the Loop, what happened?
DRM They limit who can talk what to their printers.
Most noticeably you can only send and start prints (g-code) with their own program over the network. Either bambu studio or a “cloud” gateway from BambuLab. It is no longer possible to do this from within Prusa- or OrcaSlicer.
my take:
-
~~ for the X1C they allow to install X1Plus firmware. The community asked for it. BambuLab allowed it back then and still does.~~ At the moment rooting an X1C isn’t possible. Either it is a broken promise (“We will give customers the choice to install third party firmware and root system at their own risk.”)or just a temporary issue.
-
BambuLab sad that this will come. Only now that they have done it, most people are starting to notice.
So it sounds like you’ll still be able to put gcode on the SD card and start it from there, no?
Certainly. But that’s not what the vast majority of users want to do though.
-
Instead of being critical of individuals, be critical of Bambu themselves.
Why not both?
The writing has been on the wall since the beginning. They had all the calling cards of enshittification. No one can pretend like they didn’t know this was coming, they just didn’t care.
Because they’re really good out of the box printers and prior to this for somebody that wanted something that “just works” it would be Prusa or Bambu I’d recommend.
I love tinkering and tweaking and I’m building a Voron but it’s not hard to understand how overwhelming choices can be and it’s understandable that people would choose to lock into an ecosystem specifically because it lets them just print.
I would never buy a Bambu and wouldn’t recommend it for anybody building a company with essential components having them in the pipeline but then again most people aren’t that aware and their research, understandably, led them to buying one.
I agree with OP, this is an opportunity to be empathic and to help them. And they’re learning the hard way a lesson they’ll take forward. I’d prefer that lesson to be “more careful” and not “these people are snobs”
I’d prefer that lesson to be “more careful” and not “these people are snobs”
This sums it up perfectly! Don’t make consumer-friendly synonymous with “snobs.”
Yes, but…
I do agree partially with your statement. But (as always) it’s a little more complicated.
BambooLab was known for their walled garden approach and that they have apple as their idol. So in that sense, people buying it, did so oftentimes willingly and therefore enabled the company to pull these stunts. I’m not blaming the people for going with the most comfortable solution, but that’s usually what you get
Others are prepared to invest a lot of money with the knowledge that they are promoting open source. So since companies like Bambu only use open source for their closed source without the cost and without giving back to the open source community, the buyers of closed source actively harm the opensource community. As example Bambu is part of the reason why prusa, for example, is partially moving away from open source. So yes the bambu owners deserve it and I am happy.
I bought one recently enough I don’t even have it yet. Hope it’s on old firmware when it arrives 🤞
Since your printer will be drawn from “old stock” on the shelf, it’s more than likely it will have the old firmware included. Now, the new slicer versions may not function with it anymore-- and that may include Orca. But that remains to be seen.
looks like the firmware is only X series for now anyway, and i’ve purchased a P series
Bambu has stated the same is coming for us with P and A series machines also as they roll out the new protocols.
it’s true, but it means my printer definitely 100% won’t ship with this new firmware
At some point as the old stock inventory is sold out, the new inventory WILL ship with the new firmware. I’m willing to bet, new machines are being built with the new firmware as we speak. I have no idea how soon those hit the pipeline. Might be a few weeks, might take a couple months, might be today.
Printer arrived and isn’t on the latest firmware. I’ll update it to whatever the current version is, it doesn’t have the bad update on my model yet ofc. Prints really nicely though 🤠
