I’ve got a shitty laserjet from HP that’s approaching 20 years old and still working more or less. It doesn’t have WiFi so I’m not sure it’s ever received an update to its closed firmware.

Now, I know nothing about 3D printing, but I fail to see why a 3D printer needs firmware updates to remain functional five years down the road, if it’s working today and the hardware doesn’t break down.

If I understand TFA correctly, I can buy a largely equivalent model with closed firmware at 1/3 the price, or a better one at 1/2 the price. Choosing the closed firmware one would be a no brainer for me. Edit: Rereading the passage, it seems even the 1/3 price model is better.

> Now, I know nothing about 3D printing, but I fail to see why a 3D printer needs firmware updates to remain functional five years down the road, if it’s working today and the hardware doesn’t break down.

Most don't need updates to remain functional, but this is still a very immature and rapidly evolving industry. The quality difference in the last two years is significant and a lot of the advances are in firmware, not just hardware. The difference between old and new firmware could be a higher quality print in half the time.

>Caring about what happens to the thing you bought five years down the road when the company that made it goes bankrupt is nor "ideology and politics"

Au contraire - caring about what happens to the thing you bought five years down the road is ideology. And wanting anything done about it is politics.