I did buy the FSD option for $2K versus the $10K it currently sells for. FSD is not a monthly but a one time payment. Add performance later and it’s not the full performance package like it would be if you bought it at the beginning. Something I didn’t want, nor the speed enhancement offered later, as my car is fast enough for me. I bought what I felt I would use, if you won’t use something, don’t buy it — the cool thing is…it is an OPTION! The FSD is reportedly going to be a monthly option as well in the future.
I want to see them push that upgrade from a basic to a pro over air … that would be a feat someone would pay money to watch… suddenly you have slots in the front and back of your machine for a pass through, active cooling, and your laser tube would suddenly go from a Class 1 laser to a Class 3 laser… poof! LOL
I have Adobe CS4 from college; when Adobe changed to a paid monthly subscription I decided that wasn’t worth it for how much I would use it. I use things off and on…and wasn’t worth the price to pay for it. Nice thing about options…
It’s a good machine…I really enjoy it and the learning curve has much less of an arc than my friend’s machine does. I’m happy with it. I made quite a few Christmas gifts …
Well said and agreed! How a company selling a similar product at a 10x value can’t subsidize software improvement for growth of future sales is insane. I get the group vigilant fight for what they invested in but many overlook the fact that changes like monthly Premium cost of ownership will Not sit well with potential future buyers. In a closed product ecosystem design like this if there is a drop in buyers and continuing Better value competition this ecosystem will die and so will all of those attached to it. What is a “no big deal” on this forum will soon enough be a viral negative in the Buying market and your marketing spiff well will quickly run dry.
I’m pretty upset about this as well. My tools never worked during the trail and now to have to pay $50 monthly for something I don’t have a lot of trust in. I need to read the return policy.
Your Glowforge will function exactly as advertised without the Premium feature. Why not take some time to use your Glowforge and see if there are any Premium features that are of interest to you? When you ordered your Glowforge, you didn’t know about the Premium subscription and yet you wanted the Glowforge. Nothing has changed.
Honestly this makes me feel like the company is really struggling if this is the route they’re taking. If they go under isn’t my unit just a giant brick?
The moment I first realized they were likely struggling to become profitable was after their most recent major venture capital round led by Jo-Ann Fabric. If they go under they “should” release their source code as they promised, however, I wouldn’t hold out for a functional desktop application their software seems tightly coupled to Google Cloud.
It’s because it has not functioned well since I’ve received it and now on top of it all to do basic stuff I have to pay monthly. Sucks. I don’t want to feel any negatively towards any big purchase.
This opinion keeps getting expressed over, and over, and over again in this thread. I can’t for the life of me understand how it is a legitimate complaint. I could care less whether folks are happy or angry with the company. It’s not my job to defend anything. But facts are facts. No one has to pay for Premium to have a design capability consistent with other lasers on the market.
I will be more than happy to provide the free Inkscape S/W link. It gives 100 times the design capability of the Premium services. I haven’t worked with other laser systems recently but the standard practice for anything less than $10,000 was to package an outdated and pirated version of CorelDraw with the lasers. Free Inkscape is better and actually a very powerful piece of S/W. Use it.
If folks have an issue with the functionality of the GF machine then that’s fair. If folks don’t like Glowforge business practices then that is certainly something useful to discuss, debate, or argue. Complain about that, but the lack of Premium services does zero to impact the usability of the Glowforge laser.
Think That is the huge point! You didn’t Know about Premium service until After you bought it! Seems like a simple disclosure on a rather major purchase no? Rather underhanded to include the Premium features for the first month out of box ownership (without any note of cost) before your Return opportunity runs out. Bait and switch seems to be the objective in my view. Unit should come stock so a buyer can decide to return on day One. Sorry that’s just shady.
Can you please provide us a link to the high speed server link so highly promoted also. Like how many like to debate only the points They see as a non issue. Glad your happy good for you never disregarded Your opinion. Any Premium fee should not compromise the capability or output of the product as delivered. Especially when the core compiling software is held captive online to ensure Future monetary compliance.
Is that Announcement on the Glowforge Website Anywhere?? Say near the Order button. Sorry, you shouldn’t need to prowl forums to understand the cost of purchase.
Folks always want to change what they are complaining about when someone disagrees. Funny how that happens. Premium design capabilities aren’t anything that hasn’t been freely available outside the user interface for the past three years . Believing that some conspiracy has occurred to slow things for non Premium buyers vs. speed them up for for subscribers seems very Roswell to me, but feel free.
The FSD is reportedly going to be a monthly option as well in the future.
