3 ms·

I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: clone us" strategy was working as well you imply it should. Mass market products live and

I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: clone us" strategy was working as well you imply it should. Mass market products live and die by the average customer, and the average person in need of a 3D printer will see a Prusa clone for half the price, and buy that instead of the original. Most people can't afford to spend double just on principle, even if they wanted to. And not everyone even cares for such principles in the first place. I don't claim to know anything about Prusa's financials or technology, but if they are not technologically ahead of the curve as you say – could it be because they're starved for resources to do R&D, because they're losing too many customers to rip-offs?

mistercow 4y ago
I'm of course no more privy to their internal knowledge than you are, but it's hard to see how this will help the situation. The segment of the market that can't afford or can't justify Prusa's prices is not going to go upmarket because of a lack of clones. There are already a ton of cheap 3D printers on the market which on paper sound as good or better than Prusa's products. Reviewers are by and large numb to setup and support pain, and tend to discount those factors when talking about budget printers. Consumers go to Prusa because of their reputation. So whether or not there are exact Prusa clones seems pretty irrelevant, because the information a buyer needs to learn to understand Prusa's value will apply whether the clones are there or not.
bmitc 4y ago
I don't think it's just ripoffs, or maybe even at all. I am looking to buy my first 3D printer and was looking at Prusa but have decides against it. It is just that Prusa is very expensive when you compare it to Bambu Lab, Anker, and Elegoo with features and price in mind. I don't think any of these are clones.
- luma 4y ago
  And none of those come with the support and reliability of Prusa.
  - jwr 4y ago
    I own a Prusa i3 and a Bambu Lab X1C. I'd say the support is very comparable. The reliability has been better on the X1C. And the X1C is a better printer overall.
bborud 4y ago
> I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: > clone us" strategy was working as well you imply I think a bit more context might be helpful. When the MK4 was launched I went online to see what people were saying about it. I came across a few youtube videos and blog postings that lambast Prusa, pointing out that they are not cutting edge, accusing Josef Prusa of wanting to dominate the low cost market and then not being able to agree with themselves if Prusa copies too much or too little of what other people have come up with. I think the blog posting has to be seen as a response to this criticism. Not that their business model isn't working. Because so far, it has worked great. I ordered a new MK4 as soon as it became available, knowing full well that there are cheaper printers and more ambitious printers out there. But I want a Prusa because I know it will _work_. And if it doesn't work, Prusa will stand by their product and help you make it work. To me that's actually worth paying more for. If at the same time I can support open source, the choice isn't really hard. I'm not a 3D printing enthusiast. I don't care if the filament sensor isn't the most clever solution there is. I only care that it actually works. I need a 3D printer that I can fire up and which will print what I've designed with a minimum of hassle. I don't want to dick around with my 3D printer. I want a reasonably priced product that works, and if it doesn't, a company behind it that will fix things. When watching the critics two things struck me. The first was that they are 3D printing enthusiasts. They care about the technology and who came up with what idea more than they care about understanding the product. The second was that they do not understand product engineering. Engineering a product isn't about what ticks boxes on paper - it is about produces a good product. Novelty is cool, but novelty that doesn't improve the product is pointless waste. If you look at a Prusa i3 Mk3 it looks flimsy and mechanically dodgy. Especially when I compare it to my Makergear M2, which is built like a tank. My first reaction when I used a Prusa i3 Mk3 was "this printer works unreasonably well". I hadn't expect it to outperform my M2, which consists of a much better frame, quality linear rails and the stiffest extruder gantry I have seen on any printer. But the thing is, my Makergear M2 is a bad purchase. The company behind dropped the ball on all the important details. From the build plate, which is an afterthought that doesn't even come with a working mechanism for affixing it to the XY-carriage, the lack of effort that went into the firmware, the poor stepper controllers, to the Z-axis adjustment which is a laughably bad design. Worse yet, after spending 2-3 times as much money buying an M2, the company kind of abandoned it. Without ever refining it to where it is a proper product. Am I ever going to buy another Makergear product? Of course not. The value for money is atrocious. You have to be a 3d printing enthusiast to fix the product so it works half way decent. They have come up with a few upgrades, but they haven't addressed many of the things you have to deal with every day. After the first time I tried a Prusa i3 Mk3 we bought several of them at my previous job. The Makerspace I'm a member of has a whole fleet of them. And at every single prototyping company I've been at, there is usually a printer farm consisting of lots of Prusa printers. Not because they can't afford "better" but because it is what the engineers prefer to use. Because they work. When companies that make tons of money and can afford to buy any 3D printer they want still choose to buy a bunch of Prusa printers, it is worth asking why this is. You don't always need to be ahead of the curve to serve your customers. You just need to make a better product and provide better support. Or even a product that works properly. Prusa does that. A lot of their competitors, including the clone-makers and more ambitious products very often don't.
antirez 4y ago
I'm a Prusa user, I assembled several printers for myself and my friends for a few years now, and I follow many Prusa user groups. Many Prusa users are actively mean against the company, think the printers are overpriced and actively try to get cheap clones. Not all people are like that, but a very large percentage are like this, and don't recognize the value that Prusa put on the table. So, yes, I believe that when doing products like that, that can be fully copied by other vendors, their past business model was really a danger. Anyway it's a shame that they can't continue like in the past.
asddubs 4y ago
i think the average customer buys an ender 3 / ender 3 clone. which you can make the case is derivative of a prusa if you go back far enough, but not to the point where the openness status of prusa matters to that argument.

mistercow 4y ago

I'm of course no more privy to their internal knowledge than you are, but it's hard to see how this will help the situation. The segment of the market that can't afford or can't justify Prusa's prices is not going to go upmarket because of a lack of clones. There are already a ton of cheap 3D printers on the market which on paper sound as good or better than Prusa's products. Reviewers are by and large numb to setup and support pain, and tend to discount those factors when talking about budget printers. Consumers go to Prusa because of their reputation. So whether or not there are exact Prusa clones seems pretty irrelevant, because the information a buyer needs to learn to understand Prusa's value will apply whether the clones are there or not.

bmitc 4y ago

I don't think it's just ripoffs, or maybe even at all. I am looking to buy my first 3D printer and was looking at Prusa but have decides against it. It is just that Prusa is very expensive when you compare it to Bambu Lab, Anker, and Elegoo with features and price in mind. I don't think any of these are clones.

luma 4y ago
And none of those come with the support and reliability of Prusa.
- jwr 4y ago
  I own a Prusa i3 and a Bambu Lab X1C. I'd say the support is very comparable. The reliability has been better on the X1C. And the X1C is a better printer overall.

bborud 4y ago

> I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: > clone us" strategy was working as well you imply I think a bit more context might be helpful. When the MK4 was launched I went online to see what people were saying about it. I came across a few youtube videos and blog postings that lambast Prusa, pointing out that they are not cutting edge, accusing Josef Prusa of wanting to dominate the low cost market and then not being able to agree with themselves if Prusa copies too much or too little of what other people have come up with. I think the blog posting has to be seen as a response to this criticism. Not that their business model isn't working. Because so far, it has worked great. I ordered a new MK4 as soon as it became available, knowing full well that there are cheaper printers and more ambitious printers out there. But I want a Prusa because I know it will _work_. And if it doesn't work, Prusa will stand by their product and help you make it work. To me that's actually worth paying more for. If at the same time I can support open source, the choice isn't really hard. I'm not a 3D printing enthusiast. I don't care if the filament sensor isn't the most clever solution there is. I only care that it actually works. I need a 3D printer that I can fire up and which will print what I've designed with a minimum of hassle. I don't want to dick around with my 3D printer. I want a reasonably priced product that works, and if it doesn't, a company behind it that will fix things. When watching the critics two things struck me. The first was that they are 3D printing enthusiasts. They care about the technology and who came up with what idea more than they care about understanding the product. The second was that they do not understand product engineering. Engineering a product isn't about what ticks boxes on paper - it is about produces a good product. Novelty is cool, but novelty that doesn't improve the product is pointless waste. If you look at a Prusa i3 Mk3 it looks flimsy and mechanically dodgy. Especially when I compare it to my Makergear M2, which is built like a tank. My first reaction when I used a Prusa i3 Mk3 was "this printer works unreasonably well". I hadn't expect it to outperform my M2, which consists of a much better frame, quality linear rails and the stiffest extruder gantry I have seen on any printer. But the thing is, my Makergear M2 is a bad purchase. The company behind dropped the ball on all the important details. From the build plate, which is an afterthought that doesn't even come with a working mechanism for affixing it to the XY-carriage, the lack of effort that went into the firmware, the poor stepper controllers, to the Z-axis adjustment which is a laughably bad design. Worse yet, after spending 2-3 times as much money buying an M2, the company kind of abandoned it. Without ever refining it to where it is a proper product. Am I ever going to buy another Makergear product? Of course not. The value for money is atrocious. You have to be a 3d printing enthusiast to fix the product so it works half way decent. They have come up with a few upgrades, but they haven't addressed many of the things you have to deal with every day. After the first time I tried a Prusa i3 Mk3 we bought several of them at my previous job. The Makerspace I'm a member of has a whole fleet of them. And at every single prototyping company I've been at, there is usually a printer farm consisting of lots of Prusa printers. Not because they can't afford "better" but because it is what the engineers prefer to use. Because they work. When companies that make tons of money and can afford to buy any 3D printer they want still choose to buy a bunch of Prusa printers, it is worth asking why this is. You don't always need to be ahead of the curve to serve your customers. You just need to make a better product and provide better support. Or even a product that works properly. Prusa does that. A lot of their competitors, including the clone-makers and more ambitious products very often don't.

antirez 4y ago

I'm a Prusa user, I assembled several printers for myself and my friends for a few years now, and I follow many Prusa user groups. Many Prusa users are actively mean against the company, think the printers are overpriced and actively try to get cheap clones. Not all people are like that, but a very large percentage are like this, and don't recognize the value that Prusa put on the table. So, yes, I believe that when doing products like that, that can be fully copied by other vendors, their past business model was really a danger. Anyway it's a shame that they can't continue like in the past.

asddubs 4y ago

i think the average customer buys an ender 3 / ender 3 clone. which you can make the case is derivative of a prusa if you go back far enough, but not to the point where the openness status of prusa matters to that argument.