4 ms·

This article made me even more sad than I already was. I've just been reading about Bambu Lab (a leading 3d printer manufacturer, who introduced really good 3d

by jwr 2y ago

This article made me even more sad than I already was. I've just been reading about Bambu Lab (a leading 3d printer manufacturer, who introduced really good 3d printers a couple of years ago and really shook up the entire market) self-destructing itself and burning through all the goodwill accumulated over the years. They are working on closing down access to their printers, apparently with the end goal of locked-down subscription-based access. This is much like the path that HP followed with their printers. I also write this on a Mac, where I'm watching with sadness the formerly great company being run by bean-counters, who worry about profits, not user experience. The Mac is being progressively locked down and many things break in the process. Yes, it is still better than Windows, where apparently the start menu is just advertising space and the desktop isn't mine, but Microsoft's, but the path is definitely sloping down. It's just sad. I don't know what else to write. There isn't much we can do, as long as everybody tolerates this.

markus_zhang 2y ago
I have the same fear as you do. My prediction, is that, in the not too far future, perhaps 20-25 years, with the "blessing" of national security, ads business and other big players, devices will be further locked down and tracked, INCLUDING personal computers. A lot of people already don't own a computer nowadays, except for the pocket one. In that future PCs, if they still exist, perhaps are either thin clients connecting to the vast National Net, where you can purchase subscriptions for entertainment, or completely locked down pads that ordinary people do not even have the tool to open properly. Oh, all "enhanced" with AI agents of course. You might even get a free one every 5 years -- part of your basic income package. They won't make learning low level programming or hardware hacking illegal, because they are still valuable skills, and some people need to do that anyway. But for ordinary people it's going to be a LOT tougher. The official development languages of your computer system are some sort of Java and Javascript variants that are SAFE. You simply don't get exposed to the lower level. Very little system level API is going to be exposed because you won't have to know. If you have some issues, submit a ticket to the companies who program the systems. We are already halfway there. Politicians and super riches are going to love that.
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  anybody who really wants to learn to code will just install linux on an old clunker. every uni and highschool student i know who means business does this.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    Yes I do that too but using VMs. I hope I'm just overthinking.
    - spencerflem 2y ago
      I'm scared too - the iPhone is pretty completely locked down. Microsoft Realllly wanted TPMs to be mandatory for win 11. It seems like only a matter of time that your OS will be inconfigurable.
      - jazzyjackson 2y ago
        There are billions of CPUs floating around and none of them are going to be magically prevented from running Linux. New computers in some markets like US and UK, I don’t know, maybe if a hot cyberwar with china breaks out there will be a ban on new PCs that can’t be secured by the NSA but I can’t relate to the hand wringing about losing control, we still live in a capitalist society and there’s enough people that hate Windows randomly breaking shit that there will be other options besides CoPilot PCs and Apple Intelligent Macs.
        M95D 2y ago
        > There are billions of CPUs floating around and none of them are going to be magically prevented from running Linux. It's called secure boot and there's nothing magical about it. It's already here. You have it in "your" CPU. For now, you can still disable it after it boots the signed UEFI/bootloader. It won't be long until that option is gone forever.
  - raxxor 2y ago
noobermin 2y ago
Linux exists. I know the usual comments will crop up but, now if ever is the best chance to give it a try, at least as a semi daily driver if you still want to play games or such.
- jwr 2y ago
  I should probably have a pre-defined disclaimer "signature" whenever I write about Mac OS, since I always get this response. I know Linux exists. In fact, I've been using it as my primary OS roughly from 1994 to 2006, and since then intermittently for some tasks, or as a main development machine for a couple of years. I wrote device drivers for Linux and helped with testing the early suspend/hibernate implementations. I'm all in support of Linux. But when I need to get work done, I do it on MacOS, because it mostly works and I don't have to spend time on dealing with font size issues, window placement annoyances, GPU driver bugs, and the like. And I get drag&drop that works anywhere. All this makes me more efficient. But I don't want to turn this discussion into a Linux vs MacOS advocacy thread: that's not what it's about. In fact, if we were to turn back to the main topic (ensh*ttification of everything around us), Linux would be there, too: my Ubuntu already displays ads in apt, as well as pesters me with FUD about security updates that I could get if I only subscribed. This problem is not magically cured by switching to any Linux, it's endemic in the world we live in today.
  - safety1st 2y ago
    No, it really is cured by switching to Linux, or more precisely to free/libre software. Ubuntu introduced ads, so I switched to Mint. I could do that because the code is all GPL and the ecosystem is large enough that there were sufficient other people with beefs about Ubuntu to do something. The license and the ability of the community to fork are the keys. Consumer software has gone straight downhill for the last 20 years and while the FOSS alternatives have some rough edges I always at least try them first. The outcome has been that I am shielded from most of the industry's worst excesses. Bad things happen, the world gets worse, and I just read about it, it doesn't affect me. I am more of a radical than the post author, I say in your personal life, roll it all back 100%, return to history, modernity is garbage, computing has taken a wrong turn because we have allowed it to be owned by illegal monopolies and cartels. I do make compromises in the software stack we use for business simply because my employees are not as radical as I am and I need to be able to work with normal humans.
nntwozz 2y ago
Hard disagree. macOS has been very conservative in redesigning the user experience; it's aging slowly like fine wine. There are a few hiccups occasionally but I feel it's a lot more polished and elegant compared to the quirkiness of earlier versions. I don't get this common sentiment that it was better in Snow Leopard etc. Stability is great, power consumption is awesome since the introduction of the M-series chips and I can still do everything (and more) that I did on my mac 20 years ago. Yes there are some more hoops here and there but overall you have to keep in mind that macOS never fell into the quagmire Windows did with bloatware, malware and all the viruses (although I think the situation is much better today). macOS has been walking a fine balance between lockdown and freedom, there is no reason to be alarmist about it and there are still projects like OpenCore Legacy Patcher that prove you can still hack macOS plenty to make it work on older macs. We're eating good as mac users in 2025, I don't buy the slippery slope fallacy.
- jwr 2y ago
  There definitely is neglect and a slippery slope. The new settings are half-baked and terrible. The OS pesters me constantly to update to the latest revision and I can't turn those messages off, not even close the notification without displaying the settings app. And I don't want the latest revision, because it is buggy, breaks a number of apps, and introduces the "AI" features that I do not want or need. More and more often good apps get broken by the new OS policies (SuperDuper is a recent example). The old style of system apps that did wonderful things is gone (think Quicktime player, or Preview), these apps are mostly neglected. The new style is half-baked multi-platform apps like settings, that do little, and what they do, they do poorly.
  - leidenfrost 2y ago
    Unlike your parent comment I do think that Mac favored lockdown all the way. But it does a wonderful job at doing so. Macs feel less like a personal computer and more like an appliance. Which works great if you do things that don't require tinkering, like office tasks or even webdev. And I do love Linux, specially the more hobbyist OS's like Gentoo or Nix. But at some point in my life I decided to spend more of my time (aside work) with other parts of my life. And in result, having to spend a weeken to solve some weird usecase, be it the package manager or the WM, is a pain.
canadaduane 2y ago
See https://media.ccc.de/c/DS2024 https://media.ccc.de/c/DS2024 for inspiration and ideas.
mvdtnz 2y ago
You cannot simultaneously complain about companies closing systems off and give Apple any credit at all for the past 20 years of operation. They are the absolute worst offender in the industry without exception. And no, if the axis you are measuring on is openness versus locked down then Microsoft is not worse. You have simply been brainwashed.
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
> There isn't much we can do, as long as everybody tolerates this. I don't know if this will be effective in any way, but I've decided to start hosting services for my friends and family out of my closet. It seems that money destroys everything it touches, so it feels nice to be doing something for reasons besides money. My friends and family are not particularly influential people, but I think it'll be nice to create a little pocket of the world who knows what it was like to not be exploited by their tech.
vunderba 2y ago
Two Things: 1. If you were a bit more familiar with Apple history, you'd know that the Mac was actually Steve Job's push to make things more proprietary and locked down, not less. Make of that what you will. 2. If your ideological stance is in opposition to companies like Microsoft/Apple/etc. and you work in the tech industry, the most effective action you can take as an individual is to deny them your labor.
- wqaatwt 2y ago
  > make things more proprietary and locked down, not less Yet he accidentally made OS X considerably more open than its predecessor by [I presume] pure accident?
  - seec 2y ago
    Not at all, he figured out with the NeXT experiment that it was more useful to be open than to lock everything down. Because competition is good for the company also, it creates a force against stagnation. When Jobs came back the Mac was basically dying because it was uncompetitive on hardware price and it needed some appealing features on the software side to make it worthwhile. Since it has roots in NeXSTEP (who allowed the web to happen) it made sense to market the UNIX base, potential server use case and things like that as a factor. Sadly, Tim Cook undid most of the work that had been done, in order to sell something close to a swappable appliance. So, you get both incompatible, uncompetitive hardware and locked down software.
ehnto 2y ago
There is heaps you can do, but admittedly not all of it will you want to, and not all of the results will be equivalent. For one though, you can support open source software, especially linux OS's. Similarly, ditch the Bambu. There are countless better and more open printers out there, and you can DIY excellent 3D printers that get great results. I think that's the point of difference between now and the past, information has spread so far, and people have fought so hard for open source software and hardware, that we actually have a good defence against corporate greed. You accept some compromise and work a little harder for it, but it's really not that bad.
fsflover 2y ago
> I also write this on a Mac > The Mac is being progressively locked down > There isn't much we can do, as long as everybody tolerates this. So you should become the change you want to see, shouldn't you? Try switching to Linux until it works for you. Debian is rock-solid today; xfce is so good that my non-technical relatives use it every day with no complains. I'm using a GNU/Linux phone as a daily driver and I'm sick of iPhone and Mac users complaining that everything is going downhill without taking any actions. I'm also sick of articles without any suggestions of what to do, when all tools are available today. No, it's not trivial. But it's doable.
GuB-42 2y ago
> burning through all the goodwill accumulated over the years Bambu Lab never really had any goodwill. No one liked the fact they were proprietary in a previously very open market. They just made really good, affordable printers, and those who were more interested in making stuff than in supporting an open community got them, sometimes reluctantly. And BTW, Macs have always been locked down and backwards compatibility is not their priority (which means stuff broke). They cared a lot about their user experience though, I don't know the situation now, but I don't think it can be worse than Windows.
dolmen 2y ago
Here is some good news: the SteamDeck is a consumer-ready device, but it is still hackable and tinkering is supported by the manufacturer.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
I just booted up a Creality ender 3 from 2017 that’s been dormant in my neighbors shed for years. My maker-friend scoffed and said toss it, get a bambu ! And yeah it’s a chore to level the bed every time I bumped into it and I might have to unclog the nozzle every once in a while but I did print a replacement part (the nut for the spool holder) and I know ill be able to maintain it, barebones means there’s not much to break. As for operating systems, I’ve been daily driving Fedora 40 and now 41 with gnome environment and it’s been the best OS experience I’ve had yet, I haven’t had to open terminal once to configure a single thing, all my apps are installed from the software “store” GUI and I’ve got the sleep and wake behavior all dialed in the way I like. It runs equally well on a 2014 Intel Mac mini and a 2024 Mac Studio via Asahi Linux, which was also a super simple install process (uninstalling it and reclaiming the disk space required me to reset the whole drive but pretty sure that was my fault for deleting the asahi partition the wrong way) Anyway maybe give it a shot, and self hosting things is only getting easier, Jellyfin and Immich have changed my life, at least the virtual side of it :)

by jwr 2y ago

markus_zhang 2y ago

I have the same fear as you do. My prediction, is that, in the not too far future, perhaps 20-25 years, with the "blessing" of national security, ads business and other big players, devices will be further locked down and tracked, INCLUDING personal computers. A lot of people already don't own a computer nowadays, except for the pocket one. In that future PCs, if they still exist, perhaps are either thin clients connecting to the vast National Net, where you can purchase subscriptions for entertainment, or completely locked down pads that ordinary people do not even have the tool to open properly. Oh, all "enhanced" with AI agents of course. You might even get a free one every 5 years -- part of your basic income package. They won't make learning low level programming or hardware hacking illegal, because they are still valuable skills, and some people need to do that anyway. But for ordinary people it's going to be a LOT tougher. The official development languages of your computer system are some sort of Java and Javascript variants that are SAFE. You simply don't get exposed to the lower level. Very little system level API is going to be exposed because you won't have to know. If you have some issues, submit a ticket to the companies who program the systems. We are already halfway there. Politicians and super riches are going to love that.

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
anybody who really wants to learn to code will just install linux on an old clunker. every uni and highschool student i know who means business does this.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  Yes I do that too but using VMs. I hope I'm just overthinking.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I'm scared too - the iPhone is pretty completely locked down. Microsoft Realllly wanted TPMs to be mandatory for win 11. It seems like only a matter of time that your OS will be inconfigurable.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      There are billions of CPUs floating around and none of them are going to be magically prevented from running Linux. New computers in some markets like US and UK, I don’t know, maybe if a hot cyberwar with china breaks out there will be a ban on new PCs that can’t be secured by the NSA but I can’t relate to the hand wringing about losing control, we still live in a capitalist society and there’s enough people that hate Windows randomly breaking shit that there will be other options besides CoPilot PCs and Apple Intelligent Macs.
      - M95D 2y ago
        > There are billions of CPUs floating around and none of them are going to be magically prevented from running Linux. It's called secure boot and there's nothing magical about it. It's already here. You have it in "your" CPU. For now, you can still disable it after it boots the signed UEFI/bootloader. It won't be long until that option is gone forever.
- raxxor 2y ago

noobermin 2y ago

Linux exists. I know the usual comments will crop up but, now if ever is the best chance to give it a try, at least as a semi daily driver if you still want to play games or such.

jwr 2y ago
I should probably have a pre-defined disclaimer "signature" whenever I write about Mac OS, since I always get this response. I know Linux exists. In fact, I've been using it as my primary OS roughly from 1994 to 2006, and since then intermittently for some tasks, or as a main development machine for a couple of years. I wrote device drivers for Linux and helped with testing the early suspend/hibernate implementations. I'm all in support of Linux. But when I need to get work done, I do it on MacOS, because it mostly works and I don't have to spend time on dealing with font size issues, window placement annoyances, GPU driver bugs, and the like. And I get drag&drop that works anywhere. All this makes me more efficient. But I don't want to turn this discussion into a Linux vs MacOS advocacy thread: that's not what it's about. In fact, if we were to turn back to the main topic (ensh*ttification of everything around us), Linux would be there, too: my Ubuntu already displays ads in apt, as well as pesters me with FUD about security updates that I could get if I only subscribed. This problem is not magically cured by switching to any Linux, it's endemic in the world we live in today.
- safety1st 2y ago
  No, it really is cured by switching to Linux, or more precisely to free/libre software. Ubuntu introduced ads, so I switched to Mint. I could do that because the code is all GPL and the ecosystem is large enough that there were sufficient other people with beefs about Ubuntu to do something. The license and the ability of the community to fork are the keys. Consumer software has gone straight downhill for the last 20 years and while the FOSS alternatives have some rough edges I always at least try them first. The outcome has been that I am shielded from most of the industry's worst excesses. Bad things happen, the world gets worse, and I just read about it, it doesn't affect me. I am more of a radical than the post author, I say in your personal life, roll it all back 100%, return to history, modernity is garbage, computing has taken a wrong turn because we have allowed it to be owned by illegal monopolies and cartels. I do make compromises in the software stack we use for business simply because my employees are not as radical as I am and I need to be able to work with normal humans.

nntwozz 2y ago

Hard disagree. macOS has been very conservative in redesigning the user experience; it's aging slowly like fine wine. There are a few hiccups occasionally but I feel it's a lot more polished and elegant compared to the quirkiness of earlier versions. I don't get this common sentiment that it was better in Snow Leopard etc. Stability is great, power consumption is awesome since the introduction of the M-series chips and I can still do everything (and more) that I did on my mac 20 years ago. Yes there are some more hoops here and there but overall you have to keep in mind that macOS never fell into the quagmire Windows did with bloatware, malware and all the viruses (although I think the situation is much better today). macOS has been walking a fine balance between lockdown and freedom, there is no reason to be alarmist about it and there are still projects like OpenCore Legacy Patcher that prove you can still hack macOS plenty to make it work on older macs. We're eating good as mac users in 2025, I don't buy the slippery slope fallacy.

jwr 2y ago
There definitely is neglect and a slippery slope. The new settings are half-baked and terrible. The OS pesters me constantly to update to the latest revision and I can't turn those messages off, not even close the notification without displaying the settings app. And I don't want the latest revision, because it is buggy, breaks a number of apps, and introduces the "AI" features that I do not want or need. More and more often good apps get broken by the new OS policies (SuperDuper is a recent example). The old style of system apps that did wonderful things is gone (think Quicktime player, or Preview), these apps are mostly neglected. The new style is half-baked multi-platform apps like settings, that do little, and what they do, they do poorly.
- leidenfrost 2y ago
  Unlike your parent comment I do think that Mac favored lockdown all the way. But it does a wonderful job at doing so. Macs feel less like a personal computer and more like an appliance. Which works great if you do things that don't require tinkering, like office tasks or even webdev. And I do love Linux, specially the more hobbyist OS's like Gentoo or Nix. But at some point in my life I decided to spend more of my time (aside work) with other parts of my life. And in result, having to spend a weeken to solve some weird usecase, be it the package manager or the WM, is a pain.

canadaduane 2y ago

See https://media.ccc.de/c/DS2024 https://media.ccc.de/c/DS2024 for inspiration and ideas.

mvdtnz 2y ago

You cannot simultaneously complain about companies closing systems off and give Apple any credit at all for the past 20 years of operation. They are the absolute worst offender in the industry without exception. And no, if the axis you are measuring on is openness versus locked down then Microsoft is not worse. You have simply been brainwashed.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

> There isn't much we can do, as long as everybody tolerates this. I don't know if this will be effective in any way, but I've decided to start hosting services for my friends and family out of my closet. It seems that money destroys everything it touches, so it feels nice to be doing something for reasons besides money. My friends and family are not particularly influential people, but I think it'll be nice to create a little pocket of the world who knows what it was like to not be exploited by their tech.

vunderba 2y ago

Two Things: 1. If you were a bit more familiar with Apple history, you'd know that the Mac was actually Steve Job's push to make things more proprietary and locked down, not less. Make of that what you will. 2. If your ideological stance is in opposition to companies like Microsoft/Apple/etc. and you work in the tech industry, the most effective action you can take as an individual is to deny them your labor.

wqaatwt 2y ago
> make things more proprietary and locked down, not less Yet he accidentally made OS X considerably more open than its predecessor by [I presume] pure accident?
- seec 2y ago
  Not at all, he figured out with the NeXT experiment that it was more useful to be open than to lock everything down. Because competition is good for the company also, it creates a force against stagnation. When Jobs came back the Mac was basically dying because it was uncompetitive on hardware price and it needed some appealing features on the software side to make it worthwhile. Since it has roots in NeXSTEP (who allowed the web to happen) it made sense to market the UNIX base, potential server use case and things like that as a factor. Sadly, Tim Cook undid most of the work that had been done, in order to sell something close to a swappable appliance. So, you get both incompatible, uncompetitive hardware and locked down software.

ehnto 2y ago

There is heaps you can do, but admittedly not all of it will you want to, and not all of the results will be equivalent. For one though, you can support open source software, especially linux OS's. Similarly, ditch the Bambu. There are countless better and more open printers out there, and you can DIY excellent 3D printers that get great results. I think that's the point of difference between now and the past, information has spread so far, and people have fought so hard for open source software and hardware, that we actually have a good defence against corporate greed. You accept some compromise and work a little harder for it, but it's really not that bad.

fsflover 2y ago

> I also write this on a Mac > The Mac is being progressively locked down > There isn't much we can do, as long as everybody tolerates this. So you should become the change you want to see, shouldn't you? Try switching to Linux until it works for you. Debian is rock-solid today; xfce is so good that my non-technical relatives use it every day with no complains. I'm using a GNU/Linux phone as a daily driver and I'm sick of iPhone and Mac users complaining that everything is going downhill without taking any actions. I'm also sick of articles without any suggestions of what to do, when all tools are available today. No, it's not trivial. But it's doable.

GuB-42 2y ago

> burning through all the goodwill accumulated over the years Bambu Lab never really had any goodwill. No one liked the fact they were proprietary in a previously very open market. They just made really good, affordable printers, and those who were more interested in making stuff than in supporting an open community got them, sometimes reluctantly. And BTW, Macs have always been locked down and backwards compatibility is not their priority (which means stuff broke). They cared a lot about their user experience though, I don't know the situation now, but I don't think it can be worse than Windows.

dolmen 2y ago

Here is some good news: the SteamDeck is a consumer-ready device, but it is still hackable and tinkering is supported by the manufacturer.

jazzyjackson 2y ago

I just booted up a Creality ender 3 from 2017 that’s been dormant in my neighbors shed for years. My maker-friend scoffed and said toss it, get a bambu ! And yeah it’s a chore to level the bed every time I bumped into it and I might have to unclog the nozzle every once in a while but I did print a replacement part (the nut for the spool holder) and I know ill be able to maintain it, barebones means there’s not much to break. As for operating systems, I’ve been daily driving Fedora 40 and now 41 with gnome environment and it’s been the best OS experience I’ve had yet, I haven’t had to open terminal once to configure a single thing, all my apps are installed from the software “store” GUI and I’ve got the sleep and wake behavior all dialed in the way I like. It runs equally well on a 2014 Intel Mac mini and a 2024 Mac Studio via Asahi Linux, which was also a super simple install process (uninstalling it and reclaiming the disk space required me to reset the whole drive but pretty sure that was my fault for deleting the asahi partition the wrong way) Anyway maybe give it a shot, and self hosting things is only getting easier, Jellyfin and Immich have changed my life, at least the virtual side of it :)