Drakko, you can talk ethics hypothesis and conjecture all you like, and you are correct to an extent. However, the reality of life is that there are certain behaviors and practices that SOCIETY IN GENERAL considers ethical… and practices that are not. Just because an individual believes he is right does not mean he is right… nor does it mean that his personaldefinition of ethics will excuse him from the consequences of his deeds.
Rationalization is what is often used by individuals to excuse their actions… but it remains rationalization. By your argument everyone should just do what they individual think is correct– and that is flawed thinking… thinking that can land a person in seriously hot water. It is an attempt to shove accountability off on some “who are you to tell me what is right?” attitude… which most people realize is self-centered and irrational.
“Each man is a law unto himself” does not excuse unacceptable behavior. That people think it does is why we have courts of law, which when necessary will decide for us what is ethical and what is not. Companies failing to act ethically is why people sue companies… often for millions of dollars What you’re discussing is philosophy, and that’s fine. But there are actual consequences for actions, regardless of personal philosophy. Those consequences can be delayed or immediate, mild or severe… depending on how badly a company ticks off their customers.
There have been times through history that unethical behavior has cost a business entity ownership of their product, or the right to stay in business (ie, their business license was revoked for unethical behavior… or people even jailed for the degree of their unethical / illegal behavior). So one can either play that gambling game… or they can do their best to simply do what is right in the first place.
I don’t believe “keeping your customers in the dark and selling them already outdated equipment” without transparency in the matter would be considered by most people to be in any form ethical business behavior.
Now, you’ll perhaps understand that I have other things to do today than tutor people in Business Ethics 101. These are things we are supposed to have learned by the time we reach adulthood. It is a sad statement of life that lack of such ethics is so widespread in our society.
Again you argue about “unacceptable behavior “, to support a position about what should be considered ethical and what not. You seem to have discarded certain arguments I’ve mentioned, and decided to go on lecturing about what’s right or wrong, ethical or unethical. That’s fine…but only to a certain extent. As for a lecture on Ethics 101, I’ve long ago passed the stage of being lectured on that, though I do appreciate the thought. I’ll just stick to my ethics and moral values as these have worked very well (personally and professionally) for me for the past decades. Thanks anyway for your time and effort.
You raise some fair concerns. Transparency and user control are important to many people in the 3D printing community, especially those who value open ecosystems. It will be interesting to see how companies balance business goals with the expectations of long term users going forward.
Those users are a small percentage of all users. They raised as much big a storm as they could when BL introduced the BL Connect. The direction they want to go is the opposite of that of the vast majority of users.
BL rightly ignored the wish and threasts of this insignificant percentage of users and kept going the direction for the majority of users. The market share data shows that BL has since enjoyed even more success and is now the market leader.
These “arguments” get thrown at every critical voice like a reflex. That is just shortsighted.
Imagine a future where you can only use Bambu-branded filament, cloud connectivity is mandatory, and Bambu decides before every print whether your model is “approved”: nothing with even a vague resemblence to figures/props from Disney, Games Workshop, Star Wars, or other franchises; nothing with even a vague resemblance to a weapon (cosplay props included); no open-source hardware components; no drone parts. When that happens, this “silent majority of users” will be outraged. But by then it will be too late.
The people fighting against this now are not just doing it for themselves. They are fighting so that the “I do not care” crowd still has options in three years (despite being eager to give up their own consumer rights with impressive vehemence).
Also, many seem to assume that any print restriction system would be precise and surgical. That is not realistic. Fine-grained content control is expensive to build and creates liability. A manufacturer that tries to allow “legitimate” weapon-adjacent prints while blocking “harmful” ones is making judgment calls they do not want to defend in court. The far simpler and safer approach is a broad filter: anything that pattern-matches weapon geometry (or copyrighted material) gets flagged. That would include airsoft and paintball parts, prop weapons, cosplay armor, and plenty of things nobody would consider dangerous. That is not speculation, it is how content moderation works at scale everywhere else: Broad, cheap, and defensible beats narrow, expensive, and arguable every time.
And that is just a small selection of real concerns that are easy to dismiss today, but will come back to bite you in the ***. The only way to maintain control and avoid this outcome is, whether you like it or not, to keep 3D printing systems open.
BL are popular because they make stuff that works pretty darn good out of the box and for a long time and pretty inexpensively.
Most people like their cloud system.
The end.
And until they stop that recipe or someone does it better, no one is kicking them off their high horse because the loud minority doesn’t like their cloud system lol.
That’s exactly the core of the problem. Your comment sums it up perfectly. What you’re describing isn’t just hypothetical - it could soon become reality.
Let’s take a look at what’s currently happening with operating systems and the legal situation in many countries. You suddenly find yourself required to verify your age just to use Windows. The so-called: OS-level age verification.
Many countries, even in Europe, are planning to ban VPNs.
Five years ago, we would have laughed it off and said that would never happen, and now it’s a reality. I bet people used to laugh at the idea of ink cartridges being equipped with chips to monitor and enforce planned obsolescence. Then it became a reality.
In the meantime, the subscription service for ink cartridges is even being aggressively promoted by companies like hp:
I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that all original Bambu spools contain an RFID chip, which is no secret. However, each chip has a unique key, meaning Bambu can always identify which spool is being used. From production to the warehouse, to the customer, and back to the cloud. Bambu always knows exactly where each spool ends up and how it will be used.
We live in a strange world. Some people are fighting for a better future - everyone does it their own way; some do programming, for example, open source spool RFID - but most just don’t care. It’s like the fable of the frog that is boiled alive without realising it because the temperature is increased gradually.
I think if they did that the company would stop existing tbh. People are cheap, let alone the hobbyist crowd. They will just go to the next best thing.
I don’t see this ever coming a reality unless it’s an industry standard across the board already. And good luck doing that with a 3d printer.
Here we go again, the same old tired tune of gatekeeping. It didn’t stop and will never stop the train of 3D printing moving forward. However, I would say anyone should be allowed to have their choices. Users who want open source have plenty of choices.
Those of us who are ready to bid fairwell to the old has only one choice at the moment, Bambu Lab. We are looking forward to have more companies like Bambu Lab (and hopefuly the new comers are full proprietary (including the slicer) from the very beginning) in the next few years. Exciting time ahead.
Could you tell us what kind of improvement you’re hoping for when the slicer is fully closed? It’s important to understand this in order to grasp your expectations.
Incidentally, newcomers continue to rely on Prusa and/or Bambu Slicer forks.
Could you please explain what you mean by ‘gatekeeping’? By definition, gatekeeping involves keeping knowledge under wraps. For example, this is what you are asking for when you refer to a closed slicer. This is viewed and defined in a completely neutral manner.
If I understand correctly, are you suggesting that purposeful gatekeeping (i.e. closed source) is needed to achieve improvement? What kind of improvement?
Please answer the question so we can understand what you mean, or rather, what improvements you’re hoping for - that was kind of missing from your explanation. Thanks.
facepalm I suppose you would also welcome cars with the hood welded shut, where starting the engine and using the brakes costs credits that come in a limited amount with a monthly subscription.
I expected indifference, but seeing people actively embrace this with open arms is frightening. The willingness to trade control for convenience, and then celebrate it as progress … (and it is not unique to Bambu, it is a pattern playing out across “smart” devices, platforms, cars, and operating systems).
Companies have always been profit-driven at the cost of consumer rights, nothing new. What is new is the growing number of users who have stopped seeing that as a problem, and instead committing consumer rights suicide while throwing their own burial party.
The “Most people like their cloud system.” I think is incorrect. I bet most Bambu users don’t even know what their models go to a Chinese server before being printed. Most are just happy that they can send a print using their phone or PC without going up to the printer.
I am very new to 3D printing as my A1 arrived yesterday but awaiting filaments to arrive. and this is an interesting thing to note, I have just read some Bambu info and apparently this could tell the system what filaments are fitted to make it easier on setup I guess. Yes they may well have data on what the filaments is being used for but there could be another reason if it is sent back via the internet.
It could also help them with quality control. From the rfid they should know which batch the filament is from, and they can from internet data tell if batches are giving quality issues, such as spaghetti tangles snapping snagging etc from error messages sent back to server, and hopefully if they find a batch of poor filaments do something about it even if feedback to the supplier. Information can be used for various means some are for the benefit of the customer, some not. My setup will most likely be LAN only for a while but may change in the future depends on what I understand about the system.
