Violation of *GPL is bread and butter for most of 3D printer companies, locking out users out of features they paid for and used is terrible though.

Start “open-ish”, gain traction, start abusing market position, start closing things off, become hostile to your customers…

God, I long for the day we get a decent open source CAD program but we just arent there yet. Script-based cad like OPENSCAD is just awful, especially for anything complex and extra-especially for assemblies, and while freecad has improved massively it's still a very similar UX to Sketchup circa 2009 :(

CAD/CAM is one of the biggest underrepresented areas for opensource software, unfortunately largely because it's so damn hard. There's a reason basically every open-source polymodeling system pulls from Blender, and that's because it's the only robust opensource option out there that's usable (though blender UI/UX is notoriously terrible for good reason, even after 2.8 and 3.2).

And unfortunately blender isn't CAD software. Fun for noodly 3D printed parts and technically you can design functional components in it... but it's deeply miserable to do.

IDK I'm just screaming into the void. grrgh.

Unfortunately the open source options for CAD have to come a very long way before I could even consider using them. Onshape is the only "free" option I've found that is bearable to use compared to the likes of SolidWorks and Creo.

That's their market my brother bought 3 of them because he wanted to start a 3d printing business (with no additional planning so it did not last). Now I have one and my dad has one. I haven't actually set mine up because I have my old Creator X clone dialed in and don't really need anything more. Those two would probably never have gotten started if not for how easy the Bambus are. It took me a month to get decent results off my first printer and they were up and running in a few hours tops.

Same here, and I think it was also obvious to Jeff (from the OP), but I'm glad he bought one because he's in a position to raise awareness of the issue.

I never let mine on the internet and use lan only using Orca slicer too so I don't have to worry about Bambu Studio pushing an update to it which probably wouldn't be an issue cause it was always garbage at connecting via lan anyway.

I suspect how many printers he buys matters a lot less than the reach he has with his youtube channel for bambu's financial reports.

Whats a good alternative hassle free printer that is still open?

AFAIK, Prusa is the leader in balancing openness, quality and ease of use.

Of course, since they're in the EU and pay their staff living wages, they are also more expensive.

copied with some changes from another comment:

I can recommend the Elegoo Centauri Carbon, a CoreXY and enclosed 3D printer that is raved on by reviews. If you will only print PLA, PETG, and maybe some ABS with a bit of tinkering with settings, it's a nice option. They do now sell the "Canvas" as an add-on for the Centauri Carbon. It looks like it has, as of writing this edit, sold out, so it is certainly very popular! The CC won't be as good for engineering-type filaments though since it lacks a heated chamber.

The Qidi Q2 is an upgraded version of the Q1 Pro, the latter having been noted as an exceptional value. The Q2 is relatively new and doesn't have too many reviews, but from the specs, it is a big jump from the Q1 Pro (it has a heated chamber, for example). It includes a heated chamber, so it works better for engineering-type filaments. The Q2 is also compatible with their "Qidi Box" multi-material unit.

And of course, if you want the most reliable machine with the best customer service, you have Prusa's Core One. It's expensive, but you're supporting a company that emphasises upgradeability and manufactures their hardware in Europe. It won't be the best value though purely based on feature set, but if you like what Prusa stands for, that could be of value to you!

Bambu lab a while ago came out with printers and an ecosystem that was very easy to use compared to other printers for the price. However, there were a few red flags like proprietary parts, software which required the cloud, and DRM chips in filament. Bambu lab promised they weren't gonna exploit any of that and that they will keep their printers and ecosystem open and all the red flags were just used to aid in user experience like automatic print settings for DRM chipped filament, easy to swap parts, and cloud monitoring and notifications. Despite the promise, they're still a corporation and thus went against their word and closed off 3rd party slicers and firmwares so you must use their cloud and their software.

You do not own the printers, Bambu does. So now you cannot install third party firmware on your Bambu 3d printer or use a different slicer. Everything you do on your Bambu printer goes through their cloud unless you take countermeasures and use old versions of software and firmware before the lockdown happened and you completely block internet access to the printers.

People saw these big red flags early on and called them out on it saying they're gonna lock down their ecosystem later on but people kept buying into Bambulab since they were so easy to use and got amazing prints out of them.

Tl;Dr, Bambulab released printers and software that were so easy to use for the price but came with many red flags. Bambulab ended up closing down their entire ecosystem so they have full control of the printers and you are at their mercy if you wanna keep using it.

Turns out, the 3D printing world is thankfully NOT a duopoly. You have Qidi (their Q2 is very competitive from what I have heard), Sovol (makes a lot of good budget printers), Elegoo (lots of people love the Centauri Carbon), and even Voron machines if you're into those! And a majority of the competitors make good machines that can be on par, and often times cheaper, than Bambu's machines.

Additionally, Prusa not only is better for longevity, but you will also get far better customer support (Bambu's support isn't great)

Bambu is no longer to be trusted as they have been hostile to the open-source community, have blocked third-party software that used to work and hardware that people have bought, and no, putting it under a hidden developer mode doesn't fix the issue. There are additional restrictions like not being able to access your printer remotely without something like Tailscale!

And given that they already have RFID tags on their filaments, I believe it's a matter of time before they become the HP of 3D printers and block third-party filaments from being used

If you buy a Bambu P2S, you don't really own it. Bambu can see and control each file printed, and are suing anyone that attempts to rectify that change.

If you buy a Prusa Core One, you do own it.

The boycott just makes financial sense.

I get your point, but when a part broke on my Prusa, I jury rigged it, downloaded and printed a replacement part and swapped out the broken part for the (improved) new one. With many other brands it would have been an expensive purchase and I would have had to wait for parts to arrive.