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.
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”
This sums it up perfectly! Don’t make consumer-friendly synonymous with “snobs.”
Great way of putting it!
I’m super for making hobbies accessible, and let’s be real, I’d be willing to assume most of us have probably been burned by something like this in the past. Probably not a bad idea to have some sort of community resource for information, guides etc, might help some people in the future avoid it if it’s something they care about.
Also going to be realistic, I absolutely care and advocate for open products that you fully control, but I know that it just doesn’t matter to everyone.