[imtringued]

>But maybe the worst part is that BambuLabs printers are actually really great and popular printers, for an affordable (but not cheap) price. And many people think that from now on, proprietary will become the standard.

This is the correct answer. A lot of people got used to eating shit. Turns out the 3D printer industry was selling you overpriced garbage. Bambu Labs was too good to be true so people were thinking that there must be a catch and now that there is a barely significant inconvenience, they start dog piling the company as if all hell had started breaking loose.

Now look at reality: everyone is building copycats of bambu lab printers, proving that the 3D printer industry was selling overpriced garbage products, because they knew they could get away with it. What people really wanted is the alternative reality where bambu Labs didn't exist and printers still sucked.

[the_af]

I gotta say the A1 Mini is the only printer I see myself using, unless something better comes along that is even easier to use.

I see my printer as a tool, a means to an end. I already have hobbies I want to use it for, I don't need another hobby of tweaking, configuring, modding, trying different brands of things, etc. My A1 is almost there and requires very little fiddling. "It Just Works". If I were younger, around the same age trying different Linux distros was a viable hobby, maybe I'd try more open source friendly printers, but I simply don't have the time or patience anymore.

[GuB-42]

> Turns out the 3D printer industry was selling you overpriced garbage.

Mostly cheap "garbage" actually. Before BambuLabs, manufacturers competed on price more than anything else, using the Ender3 as a model. BambuLabs printers were considered rather expensive. Kind of an intermediate between semi-professional printers like Ultimakers and Ender3 clones. Even the affordable BambuLabs A1 at its base price is about twice the price of an Ender3.

They did shook things up on the high end though, and this, I think, is a good thing.