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Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

drewdevault.com

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Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#31

Post by pierat »

Basically, the whole argument is "If Prusa had created a closed source moat to trap customers....", and that view is an anathema to open source where Josef came from.

The current line of printers are this bastardized mixture of DRM and open source: There's a piece of the PCB you have to break to "allow" loading unsigned firmware. And breaking the PCB like that makes it non-returnable. That crap's lost a lot of open source people just with that stunt alone.

And now, his newest printer is closed source. Basically one of the major selling points you paid for (high quality components, open source) is now gone. Vanished.

As for me, I'd rather open source printers so I can fix them when they invariably break. This closed source crap, especially combined with a "cloud slicer", is just premeditated e-waste. I've been down this road before of "buy cheap shit but cloud aware, and breaks when the company gets bored".

At a larger view, I'd say it's an incompatibility between FLOSS and commercial when they're being shoehorned together into a company. I would say that FLOSS is an ethic, in which businesses demand ethics to be sold off for cash. And that's what we saw with the PCB break-off for DRM removal, and now just straight up closed source. (SSC Meditations on Moloch covers this selling of ethics and being worse off than you started)

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#32

Post by xrd »

hobs wrote: post #17
xrd wrote: post #4

I find this really fascinating as my company has several products and we've been considering for years whether open source is a better direction than what we are doing now, which is to sell closed source software to enterprises. Needless to say, this is a very different market than the one Prusa is attacking, but I've still got opinions. I find it interesting that this comes the day after Xmas. My house was already c…

If you read the article the contents are pretty much 1) Prusa screwed themselves. 2) The chinese products are materially better and cheaper in every way. If you want to print crap out of your 3d printer you're totally allowed, but most people I know print useful and interesting tools and additions to their home that make things easier.

I totally agree. I'm only saying that if you are buying the cheapest 3d printer you can find at BestBuy then you are probably not making interesting and useful tools. I wish I could prove that, it is purely speculation. I just see my own world littered with a bunch of cheap crap that satisfies a "I WANT NOW" reflex and generally does not lead to a flurry of creativity.

For the record, I still believe that a "bicycle for the mind" is the best toy. That's why I've got my kids (7,9,11) using Linux and making music with Sonic PI, running Steam on Linux (which works pretty well!) and hopefully much more. It is a constant battle to fight iOS apps with ads and the junk advertised on YouTube, and I'm not sure I'm winning.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#33

Post by MegaDeKay »

Palomides wrote: post #6

>Imagine a Prusa where it works out of the box, you can fire up a slicer in your browser which auto-connects to your printer and prints models from a Prusa-operated model repository, paying $10 for a premium model, $1 off the top goes to Prusa, with the same saved payment details which ensure that a fresh spool of Prusa filament arrives at your front door when it auto-detects that your printer is almost out. The prin…

Indeed. Critics of Bambu were all over them when their cloud-connected printers started "creating plastic objects without user intervention" due to a glitch [0]. In fact, the printer had to be connected to the cloud initially but they have since relaxed that.

Having said that, a feature on Printables where you could order a part in the color of your choice and have it delivered to your door for a reasonable price could be a great source of income for them. Not everyone wants / has a 3D printer, but a lot of people could use a 3D printed part.

[0] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/24/bambu_lab_3d_printer_...

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#34

Post by nullc »

lawn wrote: post #25

> They have been struggling as of late, and came under criticism for making the firmware of their Mk4 printer non-free. One of the biggest reasons I didn't choose a Mk4 was precisely because they moved away from open source. If you're like me an values open source highly and is looking for a printer, the VORON printers are the way to go. They're DIY printers where you assemble them yourself, so they're not for you if…

> Oh, and I avoid the Bambu labs printers because they demand an always on internet connection for you to be able to print with them.

That hasn't been true for the last year. FWIW.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#35

Post by slau »

I think Prusa has had a couple of missteps of late, but they’re not in the gutter yet.

On the XL: the 0.6mm makes sense with the build volume, to significantly improve print times, but seems to really not work well with the 5 toolhead models, and introduces massive amounts of zits, stringing, cross-contamination, etc.

On the Mk4: at the price point, it’s maybe missing a few features to really hold up against the X1C, maybe even the X1E. Spaghetti detection (camera support), klipper, real input shaping, etc.

On input shaping: Prusa bet on the wrong horse with input shaping. Adding a Klipper: Marlin is old. Sure, it’s amazing what Prusa is able to squeeze out of it, but at some point, the tech debt is just going to hold you back too much to be competitive. That happened around mid 2022 for Prusa, and yet Prusa decided to push 3 new printers on the same ancient firmware.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#36

Post by maximus-decimus »

MarkusQ wrote: post #30
drewdevault wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It need not be predatory, nor need it be mandatory for users to take advantage of these features, nor need it be proprietary or non-free.

Then what's the point? It would take effort to develop these "features", the only benefit of which would be predatory. For example: > Bambu’s cloud slicer is a massive lost opportunity for Prusa. Bambu's cloud slicer is a complicated SaaS undertaking that incurs hosting and storage costs, yet doesn't (so far as I know) generate any revenue for Bambu Labs. So why do it, unless you want to make sure that a copy of what…

Some people want to be able to launch a print job from a remote location e.g. their living room with their 3d printers being in a workshop. Personally, I think that's a fire hazard, but I've definitely seen youtubers liking that feature.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#37

Post by drewdevault »

MarkusQ wrote: post #30
drewdevault wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It need not be predatory, nor need it be mandatory for users to take advantage of these features, nor need it be proprietary or non-free.

Then what's the point? It would take effort to develop these "features", the only benefit of which would be predatory. For example: > Bambu’s cloud slicer is a massive lost opportunity for Prusa. Bambu's cloud slicer is a complicated SaaS undertaking that incurs hosting and storage costs, yet doesn't (so far as I know) generate any revenue for Bambu Labs. So why do it, unless you want to make sure that a copy of what…

Businesses are more complex than just one facet. Not everything the business offers has to be a direct revenue driver; it builds trust with the brand and improves the experience by putting everything you need with respect to your printer in the same spot.

Which of the following experiences delivers better value to the customer:

1. They buy a printer and can immediately slice and print stuff on the vendor's web app

2. They buy a printer and have to deal with the nightmare of installing and configuring Cura

The former is more meaningful still when you consider how it can integrate with other parts of the value-add, such as Creality's model database, which can take you from the model's detail page to the slicer in just a click or two -- no download, no import into Cura, no setting up Octoprint or whatever. For enthusiasts the value-add is not entirely necessary but for consumers it's massive.

And none of this precludes continuing to support local slicers or free software! In fact, if you value FOSS in your product line (as Prusa… well, used to) they will be using and contributing to the same slicer you run on your workstation as they run on their servers.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#39

Post by riddley »

drewdevault wrote: post #19
riddley wrote: post #11

The author starts out discussing licenses and by the fourth paragraph has jumped to the standard "I've never used a prusa, but here's why they suck" talking points and then at the end of the article even points out that the license talk has nothing to do with their assertions. > Prusa responded to this certainty by not diversifying their business model whatsoever. There has only ever been one Prusa product: their lat…

Author here. I have used Prusas, as well as many other 3D printers. I know how they are distinguished from the rest. The thing is, there really isn't much of a difference between an Ender 3 and a Mk4 that a typical consumer (that is, not an enthusiast) would understand as justifying the bigger price tag. The Mk4 is a better printer , by a long shot, but not by the same factor as the price tag. The Mk4 price completel…

> The thing is, there really isn't much of a difference between an Ender 3 and a Mk4 that a typical consumer (that is, not an enthusiast) would understand as justifying the bigger price tag.

I'm not sure what makes you feel so comfortable deciding that for everyone? Having vastly better components that are much less likely to fail is something I think anyone would find valuable. If you give an absolute beginner an MK4 and an Ender 3, they're going to use the MK4 every time. It's vastly less effort to get started and the QC of one vs the other isn't even a competition.

> The Mk4 price completely eliminates Prusa from the entry- to mid-level market which is a big lost opportunity when new enthusiasts are learning on other brands

I mean, this is the trick of your faulty logic, right? Prusa makes flex-plates popular and the Chinese printers all jump on board. Prusa makes auto-leveling popular and the Chinese companies (eventually... why aren't you talking about how long it took them to do this?) jump on board. And on and on it goes. And it's not just Prusa, it's the whole 3d community that's been looted by these Chinese companies. They're happy to steal from Voron and really anyone and then you act like it's innovation and decry Prusa for not innovating recently enough for you and praise the looters for selling you something cheaper because it's made by slaves.

You seem great at spotting these lost opportunities, but you act like just because a company isn't doing the things you want, they're dying. It's poorly conceived at best and astro turfing/stanning at worst.

> and by the time they want to upgrade to a Mk4 price-point, they have much, much better options than Prusa

You could really help your position by backing up these claims. What makes them "much, much better" ? Initial cost of ownership and what else? Cloud slicing is not something I would want -- ever, so please don't list that as some objective "better."

> Prusa is not the right choice at any price point anymore and has little to no market relevance left, except maybe among a certain niche of enthusiasts.

And yet, they can't make printers fast enough.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#40

Post by Palomides »

rjbwork wrote: post #12
TimMeade wrote: post #10

I think this is missing a little context. I believe Prusa and to some extent the older market leader Creality were sideswiped by a better product. A group of engineers got together and formed Bambu Labs. Their printer are all less than 2 years on market and they have become the new standard for the simple fact they just work. 3d Printing historically has been "early adopter". I'm long term tech. It took me a month of…

Yeah I got into 3d printing a few years ago to start a side business for a niche hobby, got a nicer Creality CR-10S, I think it was. Endless hours tinkering with the thing, and still could only get nice solid prints like half the time. I just don't have the patience to deal w/ stuff like that anymore as I've gotten older. I just want something that works OOTB. I think in the next few years if I get back into it I'll…

I'm curious why you didn't buy a prusa? was price the only factor? It's sad to me that these low end machines have made so many people think that 3d printing is very finicky and tedious.
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