So - of course, I swore I would not buy another Bambu. But, when looking at the various pricing and other aspects of competitors - about a month ago I did end-up buying an H2C with double-AMS and an HT - mainly to reduce filament waste, have a larger build volume, be able to use multi-materials for support "quickly" and have active chamber heating for more "engineering" type filaments. Don't believe the hype about the chamber filter though - I have found with ABS, you still need external exhaust or air filtering as even though the chamber "closes" and recycles via the filter, you still have the "poop chute" venting fumes...

... and of course... even if I wanted to switch to LAN-mode, unfortunately OrcaSlicer does not yet support the H2C... perhaps it never will unfortunately...

In my experience, having owned 2-other printers prior to an X1C - there is absolutely NO comparison - EVERYTHING was community, Reddit, forum or random YouTube guidance from non-manufacturers.

However - yes, they did have me perform multiple disassembly/re-connect steps and document, and then of course every question/answer was at least a 24-hr turnaround (some delays were because I keep my printer at my office and chose to work from home a few times), eventually they sent me an entire new Vortek rack - which, once installed worked perfectly.

I was not looking forward to packing the entire thing up and shipping it back.

hmmm - they never asked for the old one back... (hmmm, harvest the servo motor? drag-chains and rods for other projects? Mount it on the wall and use it to store extra induction nozzles? Ideas?)

Back to Github... I wonder how much of the "enshitification" can be tied to the acquisition and corporatization by Microsoft... (I am going to guess "alot")

But - now they are easier - I can read books on an e-ink screen and pretty much instantly find what I want to read next. I get my news on a phone. I used to watch TV/movies broadcast or on tape rentals. Now, I have just about everything I could ever want available - without ADs... those were such a time-waster.

What has changed is that I have access to MORE information than my local (or school) libraries could ever provide - in a variety of more accessible formats. Whatever tools I need to get "work done", I can find a myriad of free and open-source options.

But - the overall days and household family routines are the same - now, instead of reading a paper book while waiting to pickup my kids (or other family members) "back-in-the-day", I can read my device, or connect with my DIY communities online on my phone - or learn something new. I don't have to schedule life around major broadcast events, I can easily do many tasks while I am "out-and-about".

Friction has been reduced.

In my experience - a loooong time ago ago now - executive leadership would participate in high-level escalations/critsits for large/key customers on calls. I was just a lowly field-engineer - but over the course of nearly 4-years, was on calls about 5 times with some of the big-names from that era that everyone knows about... And they seemed to emit enough empathy with the specific customer situation to move things forward.

However - being on the "other-side-of-the-fence" (i.e. external, consulting with Microsoft customers - some of them who even spend $1.5billion/year in M365/Azure licensing) and assisting clients with issues and remediations for the last 10-years, things are no longer the same. No amount of escalation gets further than occasionally reaching some level of the product team - and it can take 8-12 months before that even occurs. Troubleshooting and deep-engineering support skills for cloud customers are typically non-existent, and the assigned resources seem to just wait until the issue resolves itself...

[This is the single most helpful tip/link from HN I have ever found, much appreciated]

In the past a good "registry cleaner" would help - but those are no longer reliable with newer versions of Windows - there are many virtual entries that get cleaned-up by overly aggressive utilities.

Yeah - I have almost never seen any corporate or government environment actually take a "forward-thinking" approach to any of the above...

Never underestimate the time investment and frugality of a "technically curious" young person... Myself, I would have been a happy end-user, loading/playing games, running software - except, I bought a cheap modem - with physical IRQ jumpers - and no documentation - and it's default jumper settings conflicted with my mouse in Windows. If it hadn't been for that cheap/frugal purchase and then having to invest the time to troubleshoot, I wouldn't have become "technical" and moved on to greater and greater challenges and learning experiences. Most people would have just returned it and got an external modem instead, or given-up on even the possibility of connecting to BBS's...

What is fundamentally different from the late 80's/early 90's, is now there is a tremendous wealth of knowledge on the internet to actually facilitate that troubleshooting type of learning activity. Is that better? Well - there will always be a "known solution", but what I find many people do now, is follow whatever the first set of instructions they find, treating them like a "magical spell", without knowing/learning "why/how"... [And if the first set of instructions doesn't work, the majority just "give up"]

Overall - in my experience, the percentage of people who are truly "technically curious" is about the same as it ever was - single-digits... It ultimately depends on whether or not their interests/passions/blockers align with being forced to go "beyond" their comfort zone.

However - if those details are provided, it is not personal, but just simply factual and shouldn't be considered an insult.

The other complexity is whether or not one is having a debate about something that can be factually quantified, versus something that is just an opinion.

It is fact.

Of course - people have egos and emotions, so when they hear someone tell them they are wrong, they will typically take that as criticism about themselves - and not the fact that you are disputing.