alt Hacker NewsI think you are underestimating how many companies use 3D printing for prototyping. It's not just hobbyists printing miniatures.
To give an example, I had RSI and use a high-end, expensive ergonomic keyboard. The company that makes these keyboards does not go immediately from design idea to an expensive mold. There are many design iterations and prototypes and they are all 3D prints.
The same is probably true for air humidifiers, drones, or whatever other object you can come up with.
If you have access to everyone's STLs, you basically have access to all the design prototypes and something close to the final product.
It's like industrial espionage, except companies are willingly giving you the data, because they do not want to spend the extra money for a farm of Prusa printers.
It's a brilliant play of the Chinese government. Exploiting that we prefer short-term savings over long-term strategy.
This pattern repeats over and over again, from 3D printers to people buying Chinese fitness watches because they are cheaper than EU and US counterparts.
I think you're overestimate the value of these prototypes. The print itself is either a plastic render of the final product without any value, or it's a shell without any actual useful parts/machinery. If we imagine we're talking about the 1% of 1% of 1% which could end up as useful IP stuff, but which might be very hard/impossible to find/understand/do anything with it, for which cases don't use bambu.