> 2. For printing from the app, they actually run the computationally expensive slicing algorithm on their servers, so this is totally reasonable to protect.
That's an artificial vendor tie-in, and arguably a feature that only involves their client app and their backend. It's understandable if access to their backend is restricted to a subset of their users if that's the business model they wish. Preventing paying customers from using the hardware they bought and paid for by imposing artificial restrictions is not cool.
Is it artificial though?
They've bought a machine that executes gcode and that it does (at least to my understanding) regardless of where that gcode comes from.
If you want special secret sauce gcode from the bambu cloud, you need to use the bambu cloud.
Those are not the same thing, so IMO it is legit what they do there, because it's such a clear-cut split. You own the physical thing but not the ecosystem around it.
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I would of course personally never buy a bambu lab printer, because they're cloud-tied nonsense that was going to behave exactly like that (the split between hw and ecosystem), but other people knew that too and still bought it, because "what a nice ecosystem".
idk. I just don't think that "right to repair" should mean "right to be saved from the consequences of my own bad actions".
Those bad actions continuing to have no real painful consequences (and with that no real learnings + behavioral correction) after all is why the state of tech has become as bleak as it is right now.
And, honestly, if you can afford a bambu premium machine, there's a 97% chance that you could easily shoulder a total write-off. There's also a 97% chance that your ego can't, but that's the main thing causing all the bad things in the world and should've died a long time ago. Approximately post-highschool.
Nice post. May I ask what you would buy instead (e.g. for the P1S)?
Uh, not really.
I wouldn't buy an alternative to a P1S, because only the P1S is the best at being the P1S. (Whatever that might entail)
Instead, I'd look at things from the perspective of "what do I want?" and not "What does the market offer? Okay, I want that thing. But no, I want an alternative to it that is that thing but without downside"
Letting a brand set your frame of reference is the first step into total dependence.
Thanks for your reply. Only used PLA so far. But later I'll need "engineering parts", Nylon/PA12 or something like this. Strong, water and UV resistant, outdoor.
It shouldn't be too complicated and not too expensive. E.g. while the Prusa Core One+ seemed nice (from a superficial look) it costs more than I wanted to spend. P1S came out as the best (barely) adequate printer for what I thought I would need when I looked at it. But it's difficult to say if you are a beginner and basically have no idea...
There aren’t currently any alternatives which do an equally good job of printing, except for other Bambu products.
Yes but what does "equally good job of printing" mean, I wonder.
That's what I meant with "the P1S is the best at being the P1S when measured by the P1S".
I am pretty sure that if you for example do functional PLA parts, there will be many, many more options that tick exactly that box.
I do of course understand that people want to have the mental peace of buying one thing and being told that it can do everything, but, as said, you pay for that emotional labor with lock-in and eventually being rug-pulled.
The only way of not getting rug-pulled is not handing away all of your agency wholesale just for cheap immediate emotional relief.
That's how it works, how it has always worked and how it will always work. Anyone claiming anything else is in the process of actively scamming you.