Can someone explain to me like I'm 5, why you would need to communicate with a cloud service to use a 3D printer?

To steelman their use case, Bambu has marketed themselves as the most approachable way to get into 3D printing. In addition to their low prices, that includes ease of setup, and ease of going from a model on their website to a physical object in your hand. If you're already getting the model from their website (and realistically, the overwhelming majority of 3d prints are downloaded), then having their online software ecosystem handle everything for you just reinforces that approachability.

But realistically, because if they control how you use your machine, they can start skimming profit off of those digital services every time you print something. That's only works if they have control over how you use the machine in your house.

To outward appearances, they seem to be trying to recreate the printer ink/razor blade business model on 3d printers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor-and-blades_model#Printer...

Remote device control allows for running and monitoring prints from another networks with zero effort, but more importantly local device control can't be monetized. It's just about the money.

This isn't defending Bambu, and it's not an ELI5 because, whether you meant it sarcastically or not, the easy answer to your question is "you do not need to connect to a cloud service to use a 3D printer".

Bambu Labs however, has chosen to market their printers with an app that provides a "one-stop shop" for all things 3D-printer. You can browse their version of Thingiverse (or Printables or Cults 3D) and send jobs directly to your printer. You can also access your printer remotely (read outside your home network without tunnelling/port-forwarding/VPNs) to monitor prints, get notified when a print is done, get notified you've run out of filament, watch the printer work if it's equipped with a camera, etc. etc.

Bambu has been attempting to remove features that enable easy local (not-internet-connected) use cases and force everyone to use the cloud, etc. Or at least make it as painful as possible to skip the cloud.

Relevant context: X1C owner who did not update the firmware that forced bambu's "secure printing" workflow on users that previously used their local network "plugin".

I stopped using Handy, blocked the printer's access to the internet, and ultimately, did not miss a thing. The printer continued to work fine with my slicer of choice (softfever's fork of Bambu Lab studio's fork of Prusa Slicer's fork of slic3r, now known as OrcaSlicer).

Like most things these days, they make a decent printer, but are part of tech's steadfast march to control everything. The twist is that they're in a space defined very much by breaking control.

You don't really, but the entire ecosystem is quite ergonomic for people who don't want to fiddle with software, connections, config, permissions, etc. and Just Print something.

Not defending Bambu. The UX is quite straightforward and easy, however.

Should we start with an explanation of why you would need to communicate with an IP network to use a 3D printer? Is it impossible to just plug in a USB connection and print?

So obviously it's not necessary at all, but Bambu built their entire brand on ease of use - the app allows you to pick from thousands and thousands of premade models and send them to your printer directly from the app. Judging by the Facebook Bambu groups, most people never bother with installing PC Bambu Studio. And because phones don't necessarily have the raw power to slice the model on device, it's sent to their servers for slicing to fit your printer and filament type.

So it's a nice to have thing, but it could have very easily been optional. Instead they made it so that every print, even ones sent from Bambu Studio, has to go through their servers(unless you enable Lan mode)