This is the emails between the YouTuber YGK3D and Anycubic, it seems like they won't send 3D printers to reviewers who mention their GPL3 license violations.

tl;dr Anycubic uses open-source software for their firmware, but doesn't make it public as per license agreement, and they don't seem to be friendly to anyone who calls this out.

More info: https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxIMpZTkXqFo0H6pDwhZpdYqMYvLhPvWA5?lc=UgxA-4LYvwrnonXuXsZ4AaABAg

Chinese manufactures have been great for the hobby in the short term, but their absolute disregard for the movement's values will be devastating in the long term.
I don't buy 3d printers as I enjoy building and modding them, but if I ever bought one it would be a Prusa, nevermind performance or convenience.

A lawyer should call this out, usually they care about that. I guess if they couldn't sold their products in the US it would hurt them, I see they are Chinese, and it's not unheard of if a Chinese company just ignores western IP and copyright laws.

Prusa's are damn nice and as Open-Source as can be.

I just wish they weren't 3/4x the price

It would be great if the EU and US blocked the sale of products that violate Open-Source liscences.

Should solve the problem fairly quickly

Which order are these emails supposed to be read in? Is the manufacturer replying to the reviewer or vice-versa?

I had no idea. Gonna avoid them in the future.

Apparently many manufacturers do this, Creality, Soval etc.

Any company that first breaks the law and then threatens those that want to mention it should just be dismantled, toss the owner in jail to cool down. A while

There will be other companies willing to fill the gap it leaves

But we live in the times where this behaviour is not only tolerated, its encouraged

It's also an issue in the eReader market, notably Onyx Boox.

There is also Prusa, which doesn't lock down their printers for meme sake.

This is generally the implication with reviewers. You better not be too honest or you're not getting any more review samples. Never trust reviewers. Not even the dude that's supposedly reputable. They all know the game. Use the review to see the hardware and the basic functionality. Ignore everything else.

3D printing is particular bad though. I've been perusing this hobby for the past few years without buying a printer. There's so much shit surrounding this particular topic. The communities are all militant about brands too.

It's a minefield out there!!

I keep doing research into what to buy to get into the hobby, only to after a while give up because it's all fucked.
95% of reviewers seem fully in the pocket of the companies they are reviewing, it just looks like watching a advertisement.

Bambu labs entire business plan was YouTube marketing. YouTube is infomercials.

It's true of anything reviewed on YouTube. Alex on Autos did a whole video mansplaining why he never mentions poor build quality and reliability of certain brands and basically gaslights his audience.

If he did, he would never get cars to review, so let's count cup holders.

Go to forums. Look at university print farms.

I would totally expect this of Boox, but am curious to know the examples. Do you have any you could share?

Here is a sloppy iPhone text copy from the photo, for anyone else having trouble reading on a small screen. OP, feel free to add this to your post to make it easy for others to read.

Hi Taylor,

Sorry for my late reply. We just came back from the Chinese New Year holiday.

Thank you for checking in. I really appreciate your patience.

I'd like to share a quick update regarding the S1 Max. At the moment, our promotion team is temporarily short on sample units, so the shipment has not yet been arranged. We are currently coordinating the second round of our promotion plan and reviewing allocation.

Additionally, I want to be transparent about one technical aspect: the 51 Max's open-source structure is currently positioned similarly to the early-stage setup of the Kobra X. I understand that system openness can be an important consideration for you and your audience, so I'd love to better understand your expectations on this point before we proceed further.

Given the current timeline and product positioning, could you kindly let me know whether you would still be interested in moving forward once stock becomes available? Your feedback will help us better evaluate how to arrange the next step.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best regards.
ANYCUBIC
Marketing Specialist
Anycubic Marketing Team

——————

To: I

Hi l

I'm disappointed that it sounds like you've changed your review plan.

We've been in discussion for months.

It sounds to me that you didn't like my feedback on the license violations for Kobra X.

The truth is that you are obligated to abide by the open source licenses of the software from which you borrow.

If you choose not to include me in your review plan because I took a stand on this topic, I don't think that will reflect well on your brand

I included the feedback Esther gave on this topic in the video so my audience could hear your stance on this first hand.

I am still interested in moving forward but I'd like to see you change your strategy on this.

It's not just important to me, it's important to your customers too.

Thanks,
Taylor

Update

Here is the text shown in the video when Taylor first contacted them about the licensing compliance.

Open-source compliance & ecosystem (firmware / slicer)

This is the part we most want to clarify carefully, because the current wording can come across as "we're ignoring GPL," which is not our intent.

Firmware:

For previous products (e.g., S1 / K3), we have already published the portions required under our GPL obligations. For this new product, the open-source release plan is currently being organized and reviewed internally We completely understand the expectation, it's a new launch so it isn't ready immediately, but we do plan to publish in the same way we did for S1/k3.

Slicer:

We are planning a modular open-source release aligned with GPL requirements. The current expected timeline is within ~one quarter.

So the key point we hope comes across is: we're not dismissing GPL, we're in the process of aligning the release for a new product, and we're committing to publish as we've done previously.

We'd like you to make the necessary adjustments to the video content so that it visually and narratively reflects these points accurately

Thanks again, and genuinely, we respect the honest review approach. We just want to make sure the "facts" portions land correctly for your viewers.

You can always get a car to review from a dealership or borrow one. But it’s quite hard when you’re just starting out in the business.

I've come to the conclusion that it's a choice between what problems I want to deal with that are specific to the particular brand.

Some may or may not even be real issues I'll ever encounter. It's impossible to tell because nobody talks straight.

Get a $250 printer and start using it. It may be all you'll ever need, but after a year or so it's likely you'll start seeing other printers with different functions that you think would be useful and will decide to upgrade. Hopefully you'll know what you want by then.

Have you noticed how many YouTube videos are suddenly now including their own ad soundbites? Not even an ad from YouTube, but sponsor messages read by the creator themselves in the video. These are becoming increasingly common.

If I see something advertised on YouTube I avoid it like the plague. Nearly every one of them is a scam, garbage product, or has some sort of scandal they are tied to

No, that only applies to shitty reviewers.

You're only watching shitty reviewers.

If you want honest reviews, you need people like Gamers Nexus, Tyre Reviews, and Project Farm, to name a few.

the movement’s values

WTF are you on about? Bearded men in sheds printing Magic the Gathering characters?

To be fair their printers (P1S and H2D) are reliable workhorses, I cant remember if I ever had a failed print and they are basically in 24/7 operation since a year. Never had to do any maintenance.

Damn. Should have come to the comment section first, I guess. That blurry image was a pita to read.

They did (do?) have the tab you have to break to flash new firmware to your printer though.

They generate a lot of waste plastic on multicolor.

SponsorBlock has been a huge help for me for the past 3+ years. Lets you skip all of these, as well as other things.

How does it detect the right parts of a video to skip, if it’s a soundbite from the video creator themselves? Live monitoring of the video with a detection model?

Project Farm is the only channel I can think of where I'd trust the review to be fair and honest

User submissions. There's a leaderboard and people are crazy fast at submitting them. I've seen 30 minute videos have the sponsor sections blocked out within 10 minutes of being posted

As an example, here are the stats for my sponsor block:

You've saved people from 3,297 segments
( 2d 17h 7.0 minutes of their lives )

You've skipped 577 segments ( 10h 18.6 minutes )

All my friends who have one rave about the reliability. I can't get one on principle. They're all at the mercy of Bambu's closed source firmware which means you're always only one automatic update away from a required subscription.

And good products*

Never had to do any maintenance.

You should maybe do

At least grease the z axis and clean the dust of the x and y axes

I have Prusa Mini+ and it still lets you flash unsigned firmware, you just need to enable it. Also PrusaSlicer is the best imo.

I trust Project Farm, and GamerNexus. That's about it

I got gifted a P1S, so I use it. But I stopped updating the FW and use Orca Slicer with the printer in LAN mode. Not optimal, but better than completely giving the control away to Bambu Lab

Those are a fraction of a percent of reviewers. The issue predates YouTube. The days when it was only written articles was no different. They are at the mercy of not being shit listed by companies.

That's been around for a long time now. Remember Dollar Shave Club?

They are no longer as open source as can be. The Buddy Board, Nextruder, their nozzles, all closed source.

This is pretty much true of most reviews where manufacturers send stuff to reviewers to review.

Manufacturers think they are getting free paid content. Get upset when their trash products are reviewed objectively.

and for anyone here using Linux (including Linux phones), an app called Frog does the same text extraction thing

They are at the mercy of not being shit listed by companies.

That is if they can't pay for the products through the revenue of the review. Though ofc they still have to have ads or sponsors.
Much more important is if they are financially stable and convicted enough not to sell out.

Thanks for that , I was really having hell trying to read this on my phone.

Link to article?

I exclusively print functional engineering stuff so single colour and whatever colour is the cheapest lol

Yes I do this of course, with maintenance I meant deep cleaning stuff, unscrewing panels, tightening belts, replacing gears etc.

Keep mine offline for that reason and I dont really need a firmware update (as long as they are not software locking replacement parts in the future, but in that case I am happy to trash the printer and never look back, its already payed itself of 100x)

Good tip, I was looking for something like this, thanks! By looking I mean I wanted it but procrastinated to search for it 😀