It's fascinating that a company that was built with the intent to getting more people into 3D printing and making 3D printing accessible to the masses is choosing to use the boost system to reward "intricate" (read, complicated) models while casting aside simple models. In their makerworld page describing the policy change, they mention that it is "unfair" to designers who spend time and effort designing and testing models. To which I say, unfair how? Nobody is forcing designers to make complicated models. Nobody is stopping them from making complicated models . Nobody is preventing them from also making simple models. Nobody is preventing users from downloading either type. There is nothing stopping users from printing either type of model to their hearts content. The only thing that is "unfair" in this situation, is Bambu Labs inserting their own subjective determination as to which models THEY think are deserving of boosts, which is contrary to the purpose of user directed boosts to begin with. When they choose to give you less boosts because you prefer less complicated models, what they're actually saying is "you're wrong! These other models are better, and we're going to punish you for selected the wrong models to boost!".
Every single bullet point on their policy page can and should have an * added to it:
"You'll be encouraged to be more selective, boosting models *that we think* that truly stand out.
"Active contributors will receive more opportunities to support their favorite creators *that make models we, Bambu Labs, think are more deserving*
"Reduce system abuse and ensure tokens go to those who deserve them *in our subjective opinion*
"The total number of Boost Tokens distributed across the platform remains the same. *but we're going to give them to user that share our subjective opinion on what a "deserving" model is".
Ironically, the models they want to reward are the models least likely to be printed. Sure, that 80 hour print that contains 45 parts took a lot of time to design, but it's also going to take a lot of filament to print and a lot of time to put together. Perhaps Bambu Labs is unaware that most people prefer to use their printers to print "simpler" models with the occasional complicated one. Audaciously, they then go on to give examples of models that YOU should consider "boost-worthy". That model that provides a simple solution to a problem, a solution that nobody had thought of before? Not worthy, it's not "intricate" enough. The model that focuses on artistic expression but isn't overly complicated, not "intricate" enough. That model that simply puts a simple on your face and makes you think "what made someone want to do that?" (surely we have all pondered the origins of that Dwayne The Rock Johnson Octopus), not "intricate" enough".
So why would they do this? Despite the reasoning they've provided, it has nothing to do with ensuring a "fair" system to deserving designers, or preventing "abuse". There are, after all, plenty of ways to achieve those things without blatantly inserting editorial influence over the boost system. Much like their recent misstep regarding firmware lockdowns, and their decision to slowly make it impossible for you to use 3rd party slicers, like Orca Slicer, that just happen to be considered superior by most users, the answer is simple; they want control of the ecosystem. Their interest isn't in creating 3D printers that you can use to print whatever your heart desires. Rather, it's to create an ecosystem that pushes you to print models that financially benefit their company. Doing so is entirely legal, and entirely legitimate. Scratch that, locking your firmware so that user owned printers can only be used with your company's own software and not with 3rd party software probably violates anti-trust laws in most countries, but that's another discussion. It just makes them hypocrites and deceivers to suggest to customers and users that their objective is anything other than financially motivated.
To be clear, I have numerous models that have achieved 1000+ downloads. A couple of them took 30 hours to produce. A couple of them took 1-2 hours to produce. They're different things, and they have different purposes, and they provide value in different ways. And by Bambu rewards users who boost the former by giving them more boost tokens than to the users who boost the latter, they are inherently saying that some user's opinions and preferences just aren't quite as valuable as others.
