Post

thanks for the post. genuinely curious what folks here think Prusa could/should do. Put all core one code/docs out into the wild? Shave a few hundred USD off the price tag while ramping up production? Public mea culpa and fill in his tattoo while the OSH community chants "shaaame"? All of the above?

I spent a lot of years working as an engineer and now I'm working more on strategy. I think a common engineering misconception is that secrecy will give you a huge competitive advantage. It can, but not always, and often not as much as you would think.

Probably the One should be compared to the X1C. But I also believe their issue is not open or closed hardware but slow development and high prices. They fixed the pricing with the One, in that segment. Cost comparable to X1C. MK4 still 3x the more capable A1 (I have both).

that's more or less the gist of my post, their printers are just too expensive and too hard to get to justify against the competition. In the past, supporting open source has been a compelling reason for some folks to go with Prusa anyway, but not anymore. :(

You can even get a high-end Voron 2.4 kit from LDO for less than the Prusa - and I really DO love the Prusa machines but I have to agree with your takes here, as usual.

Voron printers predate Bambulabs and were already becoming superior systems. As a product designer, I feel Bambulab drew more from them than from Prusa. The fact that Prusa only ramped up innovation when Bambulab began to eating their business, says a lot about the drive (or lack)

I mean they do deserve credit for innovating in a lot of their own ways as well, they have some good engineers. Ex DJI I think, thus the lidar.

I really hope the Prusa folks figure it out before they become a footnote. I don't envy the impossible problem they have to solve for. If they want to continue as a company, they have to be profitable. But as soon as they open their hardware, cheap Chinese clones undercut their own innovation.

Open Source has had a rough quarter century. 25 years ago was probably the high water mark (overall). Some of our old heroes have either gone away or literally sold out (I earned myself a red fedora but I'm no longer showing it prominently behind me on video calls).

It's easy to talk 💩 about Prusa but they basically made the industry they are losing the home field advantage in. They might need to get serious about partnering with manufacturers & distributors in "cheap labor markets" globally to keep competing. And differentiate themselves more.

I really wanted to argue against this post based on the title, but you're right in what you say. Plus I don't think I have the right to say anything about this against someone with a OSHW tatoo :)

I'm here in Prague, CZ and I've been around Prusa people and space, so I know a bit about of their internal thoughts and reasonings. Can't say I don't sympathise or agree with them, but part of me can't help but be a bit disappointed like you.

Yep, Prusa has killed his best argument against the competition. This decision could be a serious management mistake and shows a lack of vision. If the next Bambu is easy to repair then their last key argument will be useless. Especially that the Core One has already less features that the X1C.