Personally, to support a European manufacturer with a massive track record of giving a fuck.

Their history of open source software, technically sound hardware, and excellent support is extremely impressive, even outside the lens of 3d printing these are rare and valuable traits.

I paid a premium for a Prusa.

Their documentation and assembly instructions were phenomenal, the build quality has been solid, and from day one I've been having good prints and haven't yet had a print fail.

Maybe the other printers do that too these days, but I wanted a tool and not a project, at least in this case.

Beyond that I also just wanted to support a company with values I support, and have put a lot out into the world that other companies are piggy-backing off of. So yes, maybe another company can also put motors on a frame, but I felt like I was supporting something important when picking Prusa.

Got my printer back in 2018, at the time the Prusa i3 MK3 was amongst the best printer you could get for the money, best in class performance and reliability, while having totally Open-source mechanical, electronics and firmware. I also got the material changer MMU2.

People keep buying Prusa because they are committed to keep Open-source and community contributions alive. Very model gets upgrades down the line, coming in parts from community feedback and contributions.

When the MK3S upgrade came out, they shipped it to me at a minimal cost. When the MMU2S upgrade came, they did too. Just this month, I have upgraded to MK3S+ and MMU3, printing the parts and sourcing the Hardware by myself. Prusa maintains very good documentation and assembly guides, to make the process as easy as possible.

8 years ago I paid for a good printer. Today it's still relevant and has been super reliable the whole time (MMU2, not so much, I am still testing the MMU3).

Which open source ones would you recommend?

I pay a premium for Prusa because I like their philospohy of making as much of it as possible in house, and their general openness, not just in code, but in how their business functions.

My first 3D printer was a Makerbot Thing-O-Matic. I'm very willing to spend if I think it will benefit the entire ecosystem I'm interested in.

Also, with Prusa, I get to feel like I'm DIYing it, but with great and detailed instructions, and an all-in-one parts sourcing. They are also great at supporting their devices after the fact, which is sometimes necessary, because they often come out a little too hot.