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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

This is a thoughtful reply but I found saying

"I believe Prusa has succeeded because of its community, not because of its printers."

a bit harsh. If they hadn't made good printers there would be that community in the first place.

The community was there before they had good printers. The whole ecosystem without which Prusa would not be here today, From the original Reprap hardware, firmware, slicer software, to the often disregarded open 3D models. Prusa designs for hobiest and prosumers, a market that would not be here if those other parts where not in place by a communnity passionate about open things.

I'm not trying to minimise the improvement that Prusa Contributed back but Prusa is making it sound like they created the segment and everyone is profiting from their work.

I think the point is that a bunch of companies make or made good printers, and Prusa stands out because of their community.

I have often considered buying a Prusa, and it was because their printers are good quality and low fuss, the community has literally never been a driving force.

Perhaps you could replace community with ecosystem in that sentence.

Perhaps the value of the community is this widespread belief in the quality of their printers (even if deserved - you still gotta hear about it). In a marketing sense the community was the _only_ driving force.

By the way when did Prusa become known for their printers? I was around when Ultimaker 2 was considered the best in a "Just Works" kind of way and Lulzbot was the choice for the more tinkerer/hacker-aligned user.

I stepped away from FDM printers and onto Formlabs' STL printers around when U2 ruled (not exactly a move to greener pastures, they're closed-source all the way), seems like a lot has changed since I left as no-one is even mentioning Ultimaker or Lulzbot. I'm just kinda disappointed and bummed to see Ender of Creality and other Chinese printers enjoying increasing prominence considering their flagrant and persistent GPL violations.

I think around 2016 with the end of the Mk2/start of the Mk3 is when they really came into their own. Ultimaker, from my understanding, was always a business/institutional aligned company and only popular in the more well-heeled hobbyist circles, and while Lulzbot was popular they didn't offer much that Prusa didn't and had to compete on price, which meant they suffered the same fate as every other American manufacturer: Lose to Eastern Europe and Asia.

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