their end goal is 100% to restrict use to their filament only.

I’ll be shocked if that ends up happening. The RFID tags are a convenience, but their software includes profiles for major filament manufacturers.

Don’t get me wrong, the closed-off stuff is frustrating. But they’d have to be complete idiots to limit to their own materials. It has killed other 3D printing companies and they’d be no different. They’re assholes, but they’re far from stupid.

They do track the use of given so spool, by the way, but not by individual tag. Instead, when you load up a spool into the AMS they feed it all the way through to the nozzle and then retract it. During this they track how often the tag passes the RFID reader, which tells it how full the spool is since the circumference gets smaller as the spool empties.

But if you put the tag on a refill from another brand, like I do, it goes back to detecting a full spool. I’ve found that Polyterra works just fine with the Bambu Matte settings, so I order Polymaker’s refill spools. Using the tag means it loads up the color cards data for me, which is convenient.