Editing Bambu Lab Authorization Control System (section)

==Bambu corporate strategy vs maker community values<!-- the framing of this whole section comes across as quite opinionated, and it repeats a lot of factual information from earlier. reccommend cutting most of it, and reducing to a paragraph or two detailing the community response -->==

===Impact on professional users and print farms===
The restrictions imposed by the new authorization system create significant operational challenges for professional users who kept their printers signed into the cloud:

*Print farms can no longer use custom automation systems to manage multiple printers
*Workflows built around third-party software have to be completely redesigned
*The requirement to manually export and import files through Bambu Connect creates additional labor
*Integration with existing business systems and workflows becomes more difficult or impossible
*Professional users with more than 20 printers report the new workflow as "an absolute nightmare"<ref>https://forum.bambulab.com/t/this-new-auth-system-will-make-me-sell-my-printers/135400/4</ref>
The solution to the above is not to sign the printer into the cloud. Keeping the printer signed in would be a security oversight in this use case on the part of the print farm.

===Privacy and data-collection concerns===

The shift toward mandatory use of Bambu's software ecosystem raises several privacy and data collection concerns:

*All printer operations must now pass through Bambu's cloud infrastructure when using cloud mode
*User print data, including file names and print settings, becomes visible to Bambu when cloud is used
*Operational data is processed through Bambu's servers while on a different network. The camera feed, on the other hand, is always peer-to-peer.
*Users have limited visibility into how their data is collected, stored, and used in the cloud
*The system creates dependence on Bambu's cloud services availability for basic printer functionality<ref name="bambulab-forum-3643/9" />

While Bambu Lab maintains that cloud processing is necessary for security and functionality, community members argue this represents unnecessary data collection that could be handled locally<ref name="bambulab-forum-134549/12" />. The company's cloud infrastructure costs are significant, leading some users to speculate that future monetization of the cloud services may be planned<ref name="bambulab-forum-3643/5">https://forum.bambulab.com/t/full-non-cloud-based-network-option-needed/3643/5</ref>. Therefore, people should assess if their use case mandates the use of the cloud service and disable it when it doesn't.

This shift from local control to cloud-dependent operation is part of a broader trend in consumer devices, where manufacturers use security concerns to justify increased data collection and reduced customer control over devices they bought and paid for. Privacy-conscious users should operate their printers in LAN-only mode to avoid cloud connectivity.