Comment by 42lux
6 hours ago
It's time that prusa gets outside pressure their printers stagnated in innovation and got more expensive. They don't even have machines in the entry/starter category anymore. Why should anyone buy from you if he gets a better experience for less. Especially now that they started to abandon their own core values just have a look at their new offerings they are the opposite for what they plead here. Less open.
That’s a misframing of the situation explained in the post.
Prusa printers stagnated in innovation due to patents filed, making it more difficult to add features. Still, they did expand into SLA and CoreXY.
Prusa printers got more expensive because most of the expensive components come from China, which raised prices and gave subsidies to Chinese manufacturers. That is a de facto export tariff.
They do have entry-level printers, like the Prusa Mini. Of course, it does cost twice that of a Chinese-made clone, but that is because of the aforementioned subsidies.
”Less open” is just plain wrong, almost maliciously so. Prusa offers free printable models of all parts in their entire range of printers. Their firmware is open source, and their PrusaSlicer software is open source. How much more open can you get?
The Core One makes your whole last sentence obsolete...
What do you mean?
It’s listed very first on this page: https://www.prusa3d.com/page/open-source-at-prusa-research_2...
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this is an article about patent trolling and government involvement, not innovation or competition on price
Why do they feel the need to talk about it? Because their $1000 (which was recently reduced in price even) bedslinger is outclassed by a $349 Bambu Lab A1, and they have lost their position as the printer to buy.
What are you talking about? They're talking about it because it offers an insight into significant reasons WHY they can't match Bambu Lab on price.
It's deflection.
Getting government money to develop products without needing to ever be profitable is a pretty huge hack.
Exactly. Bambu really showed how the overall user experience can be, while prusa etc. persist in the enthusiast niche, which isn't as big as it was now that alternatives are available.