I mean, you either can afford Prusa or you can’t. A Chinese fake Prusa knockoff is in no way interesting to people who want and expect the Prusa quality (though I haven’t had much luck with the fabled quality myself, the printer needed fixing multiple times). And people who can’t afford a Prusa are not a potential customer anyway. So cheap knockoffs are not stealing any customers.
Bambu is who’s stealing Prusa’s customers en masse and Prusa decided that they’re gonna slowly lock down their ecosystem while benefiting from years of open source by other people and projects. Which is, ironically enough, their stated reason for locking their ecosystem - people benefiting from their open source work while being closed.
The most common reasons to buy Prusa that I have heard are their 24/7 support, warranty and wanting to support a European company. I’m not entirely up to date with Chinese manufacturers, so things could have changed, but at least in the past Fysetc, Blurolls and even Trianglelab seemed to be on par, or even exceeding, Prusa quality for printers and parts.
I mean, you either can afford Prusa or you can’t. A Chinese fake Prusa knockoff is in no way interesting to people who want and expect the Prusa quality (though I haven’t had much luck with the fabled quality myself, the printer needed fixing multiple times). And people who can’t afford a Prusa are not a potential customer anyway. So cheap knockoffs are not stealing any customers.
Bambu is who’s stealing Prusa’s customers en masse and Prusa decided that they’re gonna slowly lock down their ecosystem while benefiting from years of open source by other people and projects. Which is, ironically enough, their stated reason for locking their ecosystem - people benefiting from their open source work while being closed.
The most common reasons to buy Prusa that I have heard are their 24/7 support, warranty and wanting to support a European company. I’m not entirely up to date with Chinese manufacturers, so things could have changed, but at least in the past Fysetc, Blurolls and even Trianglelab seemed to be on par, or even exceeding, Prusa quality for printers and parts.