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?
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.
They couldn't match Creality on price either, but for a time, Prusa was still the printer with the best quality. As in many industries, there was dependence on the idea that non-Chinese products supposedly had better quality, so you were willing to pay the higher prices. However, in 3D printing, and in other industries, that barrier is falling.
Obviously state support can lead to "unfair" price advantages, but in the example of the A1, even at an equivalent price, the A1 still holds the advantage (larger print bed and additional functionality, for example). This isn't the single-dimensional disadvantage that Josef Prusa is making it out to be.
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.
