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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 ar

by xrd 3y ago

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 completely swamped with cheap Chinese (or similarly cheap manufacturing country) crap. Plastic toys, fire-retardant ugly Disney-esque pajamas made in Myanmar. My kids threw tantrums because they "only" got 14 presents instead of the 16 their siblings got, but almost all those toys are forgotten now a day later. I bought my daughter reproductions of prints from Anna Atkins (the first person to create a book of photography in 1843), a kit to make cyanotypes (the technique she used), and had them solve riddles to get their presents (my daughter's clue was "blue"). I bet she won't remember that. My kids are buried in junk, and it is partially my fault, but let's at least assign a little blame to relatives trying to make up for their parenting failures years ago. I say all that because I disagree with DD's assertion that the low-cost strategy at Best Buy is something that will always win and is what Prusa should have done. Sure, they probably would have earned much more by somehow offshoring to China. But, I still try to buy things consciously, and would making a bunch of cheap plastic shit from a cheap 3D printer from China be better for my life? I am skeptical.

ricardobeat 3y ago
If all you took away is “cheap plastic from China” and that they should have gone for low cost, you haven’t paid enough attention while reading this article. It talks about building a better product and investing in the experience and ecosystem, which the chinese alternatives have done. We are about to witness the same thing happening to cars very soon.
- sersi 3y ago
  It's been interesting seeing this happen in multiple industries. Hifi is one of them, companies like Topping, Fiio, etc.. make great products for a fraction of the cost of previously well-known Japanese or western companies and have the measurements to prove it. Robot vaccuum cleaners are the same, we went from irobot being the best to being eclipsed by companies like Roborock or Dreame (although given privacy issues, I'd get something can be rooted)
  - dralley 3y ago
    > Fiio etc.. make great products for a fraction of the cost of previously well-known Japanese or western companies and have the measurements to prove it. Ironically, most of the ADCs on the market are equalled or beat out by a $10 Apple USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle smaller than my pinkie finger, and the measurements prove it.
- riddley 3y ago
  The trouble is, the author doesn't at any point discuss what makes the products better. They just claim they are as if initial cost is the only factor.
  - drewdevault 3y ago
    Author here. For the price tag of a Prusa Mk4 you can get a Bambu X1 Carbon 3D which is, metric for metric, a better printer -- larger volume, 16 color prints, faster printing, better resolution, pretty much all stats. Go for Creality and you can get the K1 Max at $300 less than the Mk4 (currently on sale, so more like $400 less) which is even better, again, in every spec and comes with an ecosystem that Creality has invested in to a much greater extent than Prusa.
    - MegaDeKay 3y ago
      You should know you can't just compare specs and stats and say the K1 Max is better. Print quality and reliability isn't something that shows up on a spec sheet, and Creality struggles here. Bambu is certainly a credible competitor though.
      - swells34 3y ago
        Honestly, as someone who's been in the 3d printing space for over a decade... Bambu Labs isn't a competitor to Prusa. There is no Prusa printer that is as fast, as reliable, produces the quality prints, as any printer from Bambu. I've used both extensively, the X1C since Kickstarter days, the Prusas for... just about ever. The only edge, the only objective property that Prusa holds over Bambu Labs is customization; Prusa gives away all the details you need to majorly modify their printers. Beyond that there just is no reason to buy a Prusa. Print quality on any of my Bambu printers was equal or better out of the box (minus one that had a warped bed, that was replaced for free) than any of my Prusa printers, even ones with extensive tuning. It's just a better product. Better design, better manufactur, better price, better quality output, better software (though I've migrated to Orcaslicer). Prusa has spent the last decade being the top of the pack, holding market share and stagnating. Now they've been dislodged, and I can't see any compelling reason for them to come back.
- xrd 3y ago
  Fine, I'll admit I am not always a careful reader. But, I did read it as: they should have diversified. I know from first hand experience that this is really expensive to do for a company. And, only possible when you can reduce costs in other ways, which China obviously has an advantage in the manufacturing realm. I think what I'm trying to say is that instead of diversifying, maybe their best bet is to make a really high quality product that appeals to a different category of people than Best Buy consumers. I have no evidence to prove this feeling though. It is just what I aspire to buy when I do buy things.
  - swells34 3y ago
    Prusa's big problem is that they stopped innovating. They plateaud on their current tech, and just made tiny incremental improvements, years apart. There was plenty of things they could have been working on, new technologies, massive speed increases, etc. Bambu Labs created a better product in all ways (but one; very hard to modify), and now there's just no reason to buy a Prusa. You'll be spending more for an objectively inferior product.
hobs 3y ago
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.
- xrd 3y ago
  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.

by xrd 3y ago

ricardobeat 3y ago

If all you took away is “cheap plastic from China” and that they should have gone for low cost, you haven’t paid enough attention while reading this article. It talks about building a better product and investing in the experience and ecosystem, which the chinese alternatives have done. We are about to witness the same thing happening to cars very soon.

sersi 3y ago
It's been interesting seeing this happen in multiple industries. Hifi is one of them, companies like Topping, Fiio, etc.. make great products for a fraction of the cost of previously well-known Japanese or western companies and have the measurements to prove it. Robot vaccuum cleaners are the same, we went from irobot being the best to being eclipsed by companies like Roborock or Dreame (although given privacy issues, I'd get something can be rooted)
- dralley 3y ago
  > Fiio etc.. make great products for a fraction of the cost of previously well-known Japanese or western companies and have the measurements to prove it. Ironically, most of the ADCs on the market are equalled or beat out by a $10 Apple USB-C-to-3.5mm dongle smaller than my pinkie finger, and the measurements prove it.
riddley 3y ago
The trouble is, the author doesn't at any point discuss what makes the products better. They just claim they are as if initial cost is the only factor.
- drewdevault 3y ago
  Author here. For the price tag of a Prusa Mk4 you can get a Bambu X1 Carbon 3D which is, metric for metric, a better printer -- larger volume, 16 color prints, faster printing, better resolution, pretty much all stats. Go for Creality and you can get the K1 Max at $300 less than the Mk4 (currently on sale, so more like $400 less) which is even better, again, in every spec and comes with an ecosystem that Creality has invested in to a much greater extent than Prusa.
  - MegaDeKay 3y ago
    You should know you can't just compare specs and stats and say the K1 Max is better. Print quality and reliability isn't something that shows up on a spec sheet, and Creality struggles here. Bambu is certainly a credible competitor though.
    - swells34 3y ago
      Honestly, as someone who's been in the 3d printing space for over a decade... Bambu Labs isn't a competitor to Prusa. There is no Prusa printer that is as fast, as reliable, produces the quality prints, as any printer from Bambu. I've used both extensively, the X1C since Kickstarter days, the Prusas for... just about ever. The only edge, the only objective property that Prusa holds over Bambu Labs is customization; Prusa gives away all the details you need to majorly modify their printers. Beyond that there just is no reason to buy a Prusa. Print quality on any of my Bambu printers was equal or better out of the box (minus one that had a warped bed, that was replaced for free) than any of my Prusa printers, even ones with extensive tuning. It's just a better product. Better design, better manufactur, better price, better quality output, better software (though I've migrated to Orcaslicer). Prusa has spent the last decade being the top of the pack, holding market share and stagnating. Now they've been dislodged, and I can't see any compelling reason for them to come back.
xrd 3y ago
Fine, I'll admit I am not always a careful reader. But, I did read it as: they should have diversified. I know from first hand experience that this is really expensive to do for a company. And, only possible when you can reduce costs in other ways, which China obviously has an advantage in the manufacturing realm. I think what I'm trying to say is that instead of diversifying, maybe their best bet is to make a really high quality product that appeals to a different category of people than Best Buy consumers. I have no evidence to prove this feeling though. It is just what I aspire to buy when I do buy things.
- swells34 3y ago
  Prusa's big problem is that they stopped innovating. They plateaud on their current tech, and just made tiny incremental improvements, years apart. There was plenty of things they could have been working on, new technologies, massive speed increases, etc. Bambu Labs created a better product in all ways (but one; very hard to modify), and now there's just no reason to buy a Prusa. You'll be spending more for an objectively inferior product.

hobs 3y ago

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.

xrd 3y ago
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.