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'Fuck you, Bambu': How one private message could change the face of 3D printing (www.theverge.com)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 226 points 5 months ago (18 children)

What a shit "but both sides" article.

"Bambu said they didn't do something wrong so we must take that into consideration".

It's one of the most transparent and plump "I want to hold my users hostage" in a long time.

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  • [–] 63 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    And what a community to do it to. The FUNCTIONAL diy techie 2a hippe crowd that strives for freedom.

    Like in what universe would somebody with a brain think "ah yes, let me try to pull a fast one on this group, nothing can go wrong"

    I don't have a printer, but I'm well acquainted with the people who do have printers, and from all walks of life. That is not a "take it and roll over" crowd.

    You might as well try to sell Vietnamese children full priced nikes.

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  • [–] 38 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    This kinda reminds me of when Sony decided to declare war against people putting Linux on their PS3s. Like, buddy, this isn't someone you can win a war against and you are wasting your time and good will trying to.

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  • [–] 28 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    That was such a wildly stupid move. They lost a hundred million dollar lawsuit, and also inspired the hardware hacker geohot to breach the PS3s DRM for the first time. The same DRM they had crowed about for 3 years for being "unbreakable." I'm pretty sure he breached it in a week.

    Turns out all the nerds just left the PS3 alone because the "other OS" option that shipped Linux with it let them do all the things they wanted to do with the PS3 already, things they bought the $800 console for. Things that sold more consoles!

    They burned goodwill, lost hundreds of millions in a lawsuit, lost console sales, lost their anti-piracy talking point, and all for what? To remove easy Linux access for a few thousand niche users who were doing cool shit like making clustered super computers.

    Sony had people turning their gaming consoles into SUPER COMPUTERS and instead of shouting to the rafters about how rad they were and basking in some reflected glory, they decided to fuck with them instead.

    Idiots, but not a big surprise from the "let's hide rootkits on audio CDs" people.

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  • [–] 22 points 5 months ago

    It doesn't even cross their minds. I'm about to leave my current job together with two other seniors because our boss decided we'd turn everything into subscription products. Most of it are forks of open source software running on very basic hardware and we were doing fine with selling working solutions and support. Now every piece of hardware will be subscription based. The customers will own nothing and end up paying triple.

    Our boss is baffled that we don't want to do this.

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  • [–] 100 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    And many people warned exactly this would happen. Bambu introduced a closed system into an open source hobby and the parallels to home ink printers were pointed out immediately by the community. Bambu essentially announced this would happen. I‘ve been saying this for years.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

    Not exactly. You can use any filament (analogous to the ink) and they have said they won't limit that. They have rfid tags in the filament but the printers without AMS don't even have the ability to read it.

    Until they go back on that I don't really mind them. I don't want to use other slicers etc. I didn't buy this printer as a tinkering project but to print stuff and at that it really is very good.

    I mean I really wish they were more open but I didn't buy this printer because I thought it was open. I bought it knowing it was not. I've had many printers over the years and I've always hated having to mod them to make them usable. I just want it to work out of the box and Bambu is the first one I've had that really delivered on that.

    I'm not a fan and I'll move to other brands when I can (my latest printer is a snapmaker) but I think they do still offer good value for money.

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  • [–] 21 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    I didn't buy this printer as a tinkering project but to print stuff and at that it really is very good.

    There are plenty of other printers that do this. Prusa, Creality, Flashforge, Anycubic. Plenty of slicers available. I don't know why you're pretending Bambu is necessary, or like it's the only option.

    Any time I find print files online that are in .bgcode format, I'm like "seriously...".

    I usually slice projects myself anyway because I don't use PLA, but it's just kinda lame to post a project online using the only closed source format that only works with one kind of printer.

    Plus, there's the whole spontaneous combustion issue...

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I'm not saying it's the only option but it's a good option for the price if you just care about printing stuff.

    And the options you mention aren't real alternatives. For €180 my A1 mini is really great value, and so was my P1S. I haven't seen anything that comes close to the print quality and printer design for a similar price. An ender would be of similar price but it looks like a science project and it's not nearly as capable without a lot of manual tuning and upgrades.

    Prusa is way too expensive for me. Anycubic and Creality are cheap Prusa knockoffs that need a lot of tuning to perform well. We have a lot of CR-10s and Enders in the makerspace but they're always out of order for maintenance or some upgrade.

    And regarding the slicer I really don't care which slicer I use. It just has to do its job.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    If you "just care about printing stuff" then why would you go with the walled garden that relies on userlocks, proprietary formats, and forced network connectivity to function? Not to mention the fire risk and rug pulling...

    Anycubic and Creality are cheap Prusa knockoffs that need a lot of tuning to perform well.

    My kobra prints fine. .16mm layer height by default (in OrcaSlicer), but it can go down to .08mm just with the default .4mm nozzle. I haven't experimented with anything smaller, but so far I've had no issues. The precision and speed is remarkable, and I can calibrate, print, and do everything I need to do entirely offline.

    There was no manual tuning or upgrades required, it showed up, assembled easily, and has been plug-and-play since. Yes, there's an option to upgrade because of it's modular design but that by no means means that it's required. I can retrofit it to print with 16 different filaments, but I'm fine with the default of 4.

    And regarding the slicer I really don't care which slicer I use. It just has to do its job.

    If you don't care which slicer you use, then why would you go with the only one with a proprietary format that locks you into a walled garden? That's some really weird logic...

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    If you "just care about printing stuff" then why would you go with the walled garden that relies on userlocks, proprietary formats, and forced network connectivity to function? Not to mention the fire risk and rug pulling...

    Because I don't care about the walled garden. The only thing I would mind is locking down filament but they don't do that. So these things aren't a negative to me. Not a positive either, just a neutral.

    That Kobra looks nice, all the Anycubics I've seen in our makerspace are all the old ones that are basically Prusa Mk3 knockoffs. And it's affordable, it looks basically like an A1 but with 4 colour printing without the ams. Nice! I'd consider that for my next printer.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    I have basically no complaints about the Kobra. The printer itself at least (the website is way too dynamic and can be a bother when placing an order).

    Although it is my first printer, so I don't have much of a baseline to compare it to. I'm pretty impressed with it though.

    The only issues I've had can be fixed by slicing differently (adding brim, supports, etc.) or washing the print plate when it starts to get dirty. Just failed adhesions mostly. I might try using adhesive for some trickier prints. It does overhangs really well though.

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  • [–] 41 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    yeah, a lot of PR effort for Bambu while the reality is slightly different.

    An example: they say: we didn't patch the security hole (the user agent "chech") because the user experience would have been affected blablabla...

    Well, they introduced this security hole on linux BECAUSE they deployed the new mandatory network "plugin" (that you are forced to use because: it's automatically installed and it's mandatory to print even locally) without providing a working solution for all their linux customers when deploying it.

    Yes! They didn't implement a real authentication solution for their own linux implementation AND they didn't answer to their linux customers who had the software broken for MONTHS.

    And them providing this user agent hack solution months later allowed anybody to understand how it worked without retro engineering their network plugin (something the article forgot to mention but it was the main attack vector of bambu against the developer threateninghim to go to federal jail, something they also forgot to mention).

    Great user experience mindset here. Breaking their printer to introduce a mandatory connectivity plugin (reminder: linux is officially supported on the marketing pages) and threatening those who try to fix it using just what the license allows them to do.

    I suspect the DDOS attack they had on their cloud service is more linked to their change of mind regarding this mandatory network plugin.

    It could be all the linux client trying to download their network plugin but failing and retrying in loop. That wouldn't surprise me following the user agent choice.

    Or people unhappy. After all, they changed the terms of the contract after users bought the printer. Really a Dark Vader style of user experience here!

    If you want to avoid this kind of amateurish/parasitic behavior, buy the original: Prusa.

    I've one printer from them since many years that I upgrade each few years. Currently, I'm waiting for a sale for the upgrade kit to the Core+

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Once I got all I can from it, my upgrade from A1 Mini is gonna be Prusa lol, should have aten the price difference at first.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago

    Yes they are expensive but the fact that you have an official (and supported) upgrade path possible for my little printer bought more than a decade ago is really recommendable. And I love mounting it myself. You learn a lot about the product during this process.

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