Does Farcaster have a 3d printer recommendation? 

Creality seems to have squandered their rep 

Prusa is out of my price range 

Bambu looks interesting, but is new enough to be unproven 

Anycubic and Elgoo seem to have goo entry-mid range offerings with the Kobra and the Neptune

What’s your price range and are you looking to learn the ins and outs or just hit print?

mechanical design engineer. 

I like to make stuff. 

Currently interested in: 3D printing, product design, hard tech, space. 

I don't mind learning a bit, but would like to just hit print most of the time. 

Hoping to stay below $600-700.

I own all 3 of these machines and Bambu really makes life easy but glad I learned on the ender. The output of the prusa and Bambu are similar quality just big speed difference. 
I’m a big believer in small initial monetary investment with the caveat of increased time investment. You’ll learn the most.

Designer and Researcher. Working on a big cloud and a small computer.

I wouldn’t worry about it, international patent law is a shitshow and china does what it wants. I’m sure you’ve seen, but the only bad thing about Bambu is that the machines are much louder than alternatives due to the speed.

I've heard exclusively good things about the Bambu, and it's what I've generally been leaning towards. 

Do you know anything about the patent issues with them that @alb mentioned?