Upgrades to Bambu Printers you will lose with Bambu Connect - And how it makes business sense for BambuLab

I'll keep it short - here is a list of upgrades often preformed by users to upgrade an existing BambuLab printer.

Hardware

BigTreeTech Panda Touch - A popular screen upgrade primarily for P1 owners, allowing users to have a UI similar to a X1 or X1E

Xperiments XTouch Pro - A DIY alternative to the Panda Touch that aims to expand the feature set of Bambu printers beyond what Bambu offers, such as chamber temperature control that is typically exclusive to the X1E.

OpenSpool - A project that essentially brings Bambu filament - like capabilities to any generic spool.

Software

OctoEverywhere - A free (donation funded) AI Spaghetti detection service that brings to any Bambu printer, which is usually exclusive to the X1 series.

Obico - Free/subscription based AI spaghetti detection, similar to OctoEverywhere

Polar - Print farm management software

OrcaSlicer - Open source slicer that is continuously adding more functionality. In one example, Bambu Studio will only allow unlimited K factors for X1 series printers. OrcaSlicer has a workaround that allows unlimited K factors for any printer.

Home Assistant - A extremely expandable platform that allows users to add whatever functionality they can dream of. I personally have been working on using it to implement chamber temperature control on a P1S

The likely business objective for closing API Access

You're likely seeing a pattern here - A lot of features used to be exclusive to a higher tier Bambu printer. Then over time, the community has how to functionality exclusive to higher tier printers (or Bambu filament) to cheaper alternatives. It's likely BambuLab let this slide in the past when it required someone to DIY a whole project and flash the device themselves, but we are at the point that entire businesses have sprung up to cut into BambuLab's profits.