[chii]

> Chinese manufacturing was always a huge vulnerability in their business model and they definitely should have planned for that.

none of those plans would work - at best they're a gamble.

> China can't really compete on reputation

nor will they. The competition is always going to be on price. It's why counterfits exists as a market, but not only counterfits but also white-labeled copies.

The only thing that china cannot clone is technology they cannot get access to - such as high tech semi conductors, and that's thru a lot of losses copped by the shareholders by fiat from the US gov't.

[drewdevault]

Yes, it's a gamble. But having exactly one 3D printer model at a high price point and doing nothing else is also a gamble, and a much stupider one.

Western manufacturing is at odds with China for the reasons you stated, but free software eliminates this competitive advantage entirely and you need to plan for your output to be reused by your competitors as a fundamental part of your business model.

[the_mitsuhiko]

> nor will they. The competition is always going to be on price. It's why counterfits exists as a market, but not only counterfits but also white-labeled copies.

I’m not convinced that this is true. DJI, Roborock, Dreame, Xiaomi are all brands that compete to some degree on brand reputation.