I suggest opening a new thread in Problems and Support to get help with your unrelated problem.
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Hey @dan the fact that you read my diatribe is great, the fact that you thought and responded is above and beyond, business leaders rarely do that today, it reflects your willing to listen, so I really appreciate that and I’m sure others on the forum do too.
Know that I love my Glowforge, it has given myself and my son a lovely little Etsy business and way more importantly a reason to bond (FYI, have you guys ever thought about selling direct from glowforge) and it’s been a blast. My point on another subscription is absolutely real though. If I took your subscription I’d have to drop another (and I don’t think my wife’s ready to drop her Netflix fix yet) so all I’m saying is consider options, strangely a one time annual fee (at the reduced rate) seems more palatable cause you pay it when you have it. It’s the continual financial bleed that hurts the most. (Horrible analogy, sorry).
Anyway, I’m one opinion on the pack, take it or leave it, keep on developing and disrupting you’ve got a great community of makers behind you.
Best
Mark
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We sent ear savers all over the country, advertising for glowforge. I made 16,000 and I don’t want anything for that, but glowforge certainly benefitted from our generosity.
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Im not concerned about server speeds, I’ve been satisfied with it until now.
But my concern is that gf seem to have pivoted from a hardware company to a saas company.
And i dont think they want to charge for it. They certainly dont really believe that 50$/month is reasonable. But i guess they figured that that is the target if they want to keep the lights on. And that concerns me
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I remember how long my designs I use the most took to process before. I did feel like they rendered / processed slightly faster after the upgrade in August. Today I logged in though and was told “I was in the fast lane” and the corresponding update about premium. Being that my designs aren’t processing faster now than they were after the upgrade - I think it is safe to say if you don’t subscribe then you will be put on the old servers. We are already on the new ones because we are all in a premium trial.
$50/m does seem steep to me - I understand why the arrived at that # though. I realize some of you are really successful and really making money with your Glowforge. I admittedly am only making a few hundred a month off it so the $50 tag is definitely too much for me. I will be subscribing now to save my self $34/m.
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I am new to Glowforge. I’ve printed only a few times. Yesterday, Sunday, I tried printing and I kept getting the message that my printer was offline. I figured that was because too many people were using their Glowforge units. I signed up for the Premium service and Voila…I was instantly connected. My take on this service is essentially you are paying for congestion pricing.
That’s not how it works.
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Correlation isn’t causation.
That’s not it.
If it’s indicating offline, it means you have impaired service somewhere between your local network (most often the case) and somewhere this side of the GF servers.
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I’m here to learn. Everyone here is the reason I’m here. (I also love hanging out in the forum, even if it’s when everyone is yelling at me 
)
That’s a great idea!
My kids are both on the brink of launching Etsy stores (coasters and dice towers) but reluctant to push the button.
Great idea re: selling directly, thank you!
Got it - I’ll share that suggestion with the team!
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, and I know how much those 16,000 people did too. My kids made and delivered over a thousand and so I got to hear back from the real people on the front lines we were helping.
Thank you for what you did. You made a difference.
Yes: we switched to faster processing with the earlier announcement. Fast lane is super-turbo. Anyone who wants to stick with Glowforge Print will be on the faster (but not super-turbo) servers.
I’m sorry you were having connectivity problems! You have my assurance that that has nothing to do with the subscription. Unfortunately the “offline” error can have a host of causes, from local traffic congestion to someone using a microwave (which plays havoc with wifi signal).
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Well normally I would agree with you, however nothing changed with my settings. It didn’t connect for five minutes. As soon as I upgraded I was able to connect. Anyway, it sure seems as if there was a link!
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Coincidences happen. If they didn’t we wouldn’t have a word for it.
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Sometimes the car examples make me giggle. I always think of Tesla. You can buy the car, but they can remotely turn it off. Since I don’t own a Tesla, I’m not sure about their protections that your car will continue to run in case they ever close up shop.
I watched a youtuber rebuilding a wrecked Tesla that he bought, and his biggest concern was that Tesla would turn off his car because he was the one fixing it, it had been totaled, and he was not an authorized Tesla repair person. I’ve seen some unsupported after-warranty glowforge hacks in this forum, and those machines are still functional. I’ve never seen anything about glowforge turning them off for safety violations, so I’m happy about that (I’m comparing cars to lasers right now).
To me, a Tesla would be a much bigger paperweight, both in size and cost, especially since you have to take it to a Tesla facility to get it working again. Part of me is also worried that Mr. Musk is a bit unstable…like he’d turn off cars for the fun of it… My husband says geniuses are allowed to be a bit eccentric, but I lack a bit of confidence in the company when the founder is… a bit eccentric.
Next example is about paying high-end prices for no features. There are tons of baseline cars out there that charge extra for a/c, power windows, extra airbags, a radio… (like 1600 for a comfort package), but some super cars don’t have the options for comfort at all. Like the McLaren Senna: no ac, no cargo space, because it adds weight, and it costs over a million dollars (base price) .
So yes, cars are bad examples when comparing glowforge “expected to be included” features, because I can name too many real cars that lack what most people consider as standard.
Sorry, got cars on the brain again, since I just bought an extended warranty today. Warranty expires at 50k, and extended warranty adds an extra 75k miles to it. My new monthly “subscription” cost on something I may or may not use is 240 a month, with a down payment of 640. (beginning another bad car comparison) I don’t get any extra features, I still have to pay for general maintenance (40k maintenance cost over $2.2k… Don’t even get me started on how many times I replaced the brakes and rotors this year… The cost is ungodly), and I have to pay a 200 deductible for every repair (this saved me $1000 on total cost)…BUT a new motor would cost me 40k (I know, because my last one needed an engine replacement… Luckily while still under warranty… Which they bought back because they couldn’t get a replacement motor shipped from South Africa quick enough… after 2 months of sitting untouched at the dealership waiting for repairs… And another 2 months of waiting for them to order a new motor, to find out that there was no ETA.
So, completely off topic (as I always am), and not a parallel comparison at all, but I find the features of glowforge premium to be more useful on a daily basis than my many monthly payments on the car alone (loan, insurance, warranty, tickets 
). On the bright side, I was able to use the glowforge to make a front plate bracket… So soon that ticket will be taken care of. 
. And my glowforge helps me earn some extra money every month to help alleviate all those monthly payments, so it’s actually paying for premium for me.
@mdurbs Netflix is included with my cellphone plan at no extra cost. I don’t know what country you are in or what service provider you have, but I was able to eliminate Netflix costs by checking out updated phone plans, so now I’m paying much less than before, and I have Netflix included and upgraded data speeds overseas (which is useless right now ).
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Holy motherforking shirtballs!
He needs to start a perfume company…
Elan Musk…
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I wouldn’t buy it, I’m not a fan of musky perfume. Gives me a headache. Maybe if his name was Mr. Citrus.
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Heh - I am the exact opposite. I love eating citrus, but the perfumes pain me. I love musks and ambers, deep dark scents.
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I think $50 a month is pretty crazy; there is no way in hell I would pay that. Even though I had gotten pretty used to some of the premium features, I would adapt without if I had to.
But $15 a month is well worth it to me. Why?
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Because I get to save all of my projects indefinitely and even if I haven’t printed a project in 6 months, I can feel assured knowing that it will still be there and set up for me with all my settings and I don’t have to set it back up again.
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Many of the premium features I use REGULARLY and they save me a ton of time. While yes, I CAN and DO create my own files, being able to just quickly add simple shapes within the GFUI without needing to create a bunch of simple geometric shape SVG files on my computer saves me time. The ability to use the mirror tool within the GFUI saves me time. The ability to use the create outline tool right within GFUI saves me time so I don’t have to spend time creating offset shapes and saving extra files of every single file I need an offset shape of (I do statement jewelry that frequently requires special offset shapes of phrases and whatnot and its MUCH easier to do it within the GFUI than within Inkscape). Again, if I HAD to do this all manually myself outside of the GFUI, I could and I would to save $50 a month but these features are very much worth $15 a month for me.
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I have the noise he makes running through my head now. “kun kun, kun kun.” Thanks for that 
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I love all the anime reference here.
It has been a while since I have seen it, but that one is “Fairy Tail” isn’t it?