[therealpygon]

If you don’t print anything proprietary or private, sure go ahead. You can let them intercept your 3d files all day and not be worried when you encounter models they decide they don’t want you to print with your printer in the future. (And trust me, that is ABSOLUTELY what is coming; monitoring everything you print and blocking you from printing anything they — Bambu or Government — deem you shouldn’t be allowed to print.)

That is my issue. I’m not printing guns or anything unsafe. I also don’t know what could happen in the future; it’s not like we get to govern ourselves (unless you buy into that lie). So given that, I’d rather stick with something that won’t have the capacity to stop me from using it later, for any reason.

The developer mode everyone loves to point out only came after massive community backslash to the fact that they made you unable to print without the Cloud. It wasn’t something they planned to add, it was an afterthought added only to quell the complaints and negative press which they can easily take away later again with an OTA firmware update (and have already demonstrated they are willing to).

You might call that noise, I call that a legitimate concern on being able to use the product I bought and paid for in the future. It’s good to be informed of what the “noise” is really about, since people like to marginalize concerns they dismiss or don’t understand. Best of luck with your purchase!

[qwerpy]

I ended up getting that Bambu X2D right after I wrote that comment, and what do you know, the catamaran printed on its first try with the same filament that I was using before. I did set up developer/LAN mode and integrated it with Home Assistant and it's great (for now). If they stealth patch out LAN mode while my printer is in LAN mode I will eat my words, tolerate the cloud nonsense as long as I can, and replace it with another printer if it gets bad.

But for now I have a fantastic printer for the price. Prusa was my second choice but you can't get X2D-equivalent functionality even if you were willing to do everything possible to upgrade it.

[imtringued]

Ok but if this is your argument, you could have pointed out that thanks to Bamboo labs the Chinese 3d printer companies had to radically change their product designs to the point where you can get good printers from other companies rather than lash out at Bamboo Labs. If you don't like them then it would be better for them to fade into irrelevance. I just don't get this obsession. I personally would rather buy a Snapmaker U1 because it is a better printer architecture than dual nozzles.

[therealpygon]

That you characterize it as obsession says more about your pre-established opinion that it is irrelevant, than what the facts are. Good for you, buy what you want? What were you hoping for there?