Also I am not a sheep I am a WOLF, I don’t like to follow.
Why should we Hide it? Maybe they should use better developers that know how to code an unsubscribe feature to the messaging service.
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Sorry I “pressed your button”… the fact “features” are thrown at users without consideration is a pet peeve of mine, I’ve worked in the software industry since the 90’s, and been product manager/technical product manager at various companies, and this was often a battle I had to fight.
The developers only do what the PM’s tell them, but that’s semantics. It’s an insidious philosophy that many simply overlook.
… and I am well aware of the struggles with adhd.
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Sorry I didn’t mean to come across the way it sounded, I really appreciate your comments. Just like you I am really peeved with this situation we all face. What annoys me the most is that Glowforge customer support never give a straight answer and never get to the point in hand, it takes countless emails for the answer you need or require. Why can’t they just keep it simple, I have various other laser machines in which all just keep it simple no gimmicks just a laser machine and the customer then decides what software to use intended for the job to be uploaded to the machine. Lightburn do not cause these headaches
I owned a tech company in the 90’s and worked on the early stage Internet connection service providers. If you are from the UK the company I was attached to was called Software Warehouse that eventually become Jungle.com
I am very familiar with coding, app design, graphic design, website design, I have done it all and to this day I still design and develop websites and software. Maybe if I was just using Glowforge for a hobby and didn’t know anything about code/software/websites then yes I probably wouldn’t have the same view. But knowing how easy it is to write a code and implement and attach to the messenger service, takes minutes. This could all be resolved within minutes if the developers know what they are doing, rewrite the code and action it straight away.
I think that’s an unnecessary jab.
Here’s the CSS to add to StyleBot to hide it:
.scroll-box-content :has(iframe[title~="Discord"]) {
display: none;
}
I also made a video walkthrough. This is something that actually only takes minutes.
For everyone who has already started responding “But I shouldn’t have to block it!”, you’re right. But do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? This is something you can do today, right now, while you wait for a response to your polite feedback.
I have also been a professional software developer for several decades. I want to make the point that the fact that it was not instantly fixed to your satisfaction doesn’t mean they aren’t listening. I’ve had the misfortune of trying to work with lone wolves who think they can just throw stuff into production. That’s how you get broken stuff, and you have to rush more changes out to try to fix it, and the feedback loop spirals into chaos. A more realistic timeline:
- Feedback is collected
- Product lead(s) sort through it and prioritize
- Development team is consulted to estimate how much work it will be
- Many questions arise: where will the setting go? Is it per-user, per-machine, per-browser? Does it unexpectedly interact with other features?
- UX design needs to figure out what it’s going to look like and how it’s going to behave
- Work is scheduled relative to all the other things the team needs to be doing
- Code is written, reviewed, submitted, and a release candidate built
- Release is QA tested
- Documentation is updated, including internal docs for support staff
- Release is scheduled and deployed
Even for a feature that is fast-tracked ahead of other plans, this is not “minutes”. For something which has a workaround (clicking the hide button), this is not an emergency fix, and so it is appropriate for it to follow the full, standard development process. I’d much rather click the hide button for a few weeks than have this rushed out and cause an outage that leaves me unable to print anything.
I’m sympathetic to folks who are very frustrated by this. I have some of those same diagnoses. Even though I like the chat, and have been participating in it (to the detriment of my focus), I have no use for it being in the Glowforge app. What I don’t understand on the one hand describing the chat as being literally “mental torture” that is causing you to lose money to the extent that you’re considering hiring a lawyer, and on the other hand saying “why should we hide it?”. I should think the answer to that question is obvious.
Please accept this as a positive response.
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One thing I need to make clear - Every body is a lone wolf but most choose to follow for simplicity. I’m not a lone wolf trying to add things into production, it should never have happened in the first place! Do these companies not expect consequences of there own actions?
Moving on.
Can I ask why wasn’t the feedback research done before actioning the madness of a messenger service?
Your bullet points are missing one key thing - ‘Ask the customer what they would prefer’ the customers that pay for there company to exist. I know for a fact these large successful companies start off with market research before implying anything new to the original product. Again another oversight from a software developer.
Wouldn’t it make sense to do market research before actioning this? I agree to all your bullet points, but as a customer who has paid 1000’s to use this software. I would expect Glowforge as a company to action customers feedback prior to implementing this. Would it not seem feasible to send an email out to every Glowforge user asking them if they use the machine for a hobby or business and would a messenger service on the main app screen be beneficial or unbeneficial to there already hectic working day? I guarantee that 80% of business’s would choose unbeneficial, yes if your a hobbyist that has a full time job paying for your bills I would agree that this maybe beneficial. Implement options for different platforms - Hobbyist, Business & a section for people who just want to laser NOT get involved with the community whilst trying to work.
Your comment about not understanding:
MY Mental Torcher - I have to see this messenger pop up every time I do a print (I print on average 40 times plus a day) That’s 40 times I have to say to myself don’t get distracted by the messenger service, do you know how tiring that is? Pressing Hide 40 plus times really peeves me as I shouldn’t have to train my brain to do this, sometimes I forget to do it and find myself reading comments on the messenger service, pressing hide because there is no option to get rid of it.
Also my partner saying to me ‘no wonder you can’t do your work if your talking to people online!!!’ I’m not talking to anyone online but this messenger wont disappear. AND NO why should I have to download another piece of software to try and hide other peoples mistakes. HIDE IT is Glowforge’s answer… Really??
Think of it this way - You are driving your brand new car whilst trying to concentrate on the road, it takes a lot of mental power for some people not to be distracted. Out of nowhere a messenger service appears on the console computer every few minutes. Your concentration would soon go out the window as you would be more focussed on trying to stop the messenger service. You complain and take it back to the dealership only to be told ‘Just turn the console off and you will be fine…’ I’m guessing you would not be happy.
To the point I haven’t used my Glowforge now because I cannot trust my brain to start using the messenger service. Lightburn doesn’t include a social messenger service to distract me, I simply design my job and send it to the machine. However I need the Glowforge for certain jobs, I have removed these products from my online shop resulting in me losing orders to competitors, do you see what I mean about losing money?
Also Glowforge have now created a path for hackers to enter my business data, as you know if hackers want something they can easily find a way to get in. UK Data Laws - I did not approve or grant access for this messenger to use cookies on my computer. Even after blocking the messenger service as longs as the Glowforge App is open and logged into the app can still be hacked.
UK Data Laws also states that anything to do with advertising needs to have an unsubscribe button clearly added to the software/email/programme. You are probably wondering ‘how is it advertising?’ Anything branded with there company name is classed as advertising.
Yes Glowforge are an American based company, but they are still operating within the UK and need to abide by the Data Policy agreements.
I do not need sympathy at all, I am not here for that. I just want my day to go smoothly, it takes me a long time days/weeks to get back into the working rhythm. Until you have experienced this you will never understand what it feels like.
I am not here to judge or understand other people’s situations. We all have mental health issues, just unfortunately others show and feel it more than others. Up until 5 years ago I never felt this way, so please remember it can happen to anyone, money/fitness/age doesn’t come into account with mental health or other well known diseases.
All I can say is your diagnosis for mental health cannot be as advanced or severe as mine, until you experience the same diagnosis please do not question why it is mental torture for me. If you do not understand do not comment or specify why you don’t understand. Everybody’s brain works differently so why would I want or need you to understand my constant ongoing hourly/daily torcher. I do not understand myself why I feel this way, if I did I would not be writing such long essays as a reply (wasting more time out of my working day) because my brain wont allow me to put a simple reply.
Again I do not take offence to anybody’s comments, everybody is entitled to express there opinions.
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P.S. The video was very good and I thank you for this.
Because that’s how companies work. They don’t give consideration to the user base before implementing new “features” they think everyone will want.
I believe your information to be wrong. I have worked with many large FTSE global companies in the past and all have researched into what people want prior to going ahead with there new design. America may be different.
Hopefully Glowforge realise what they have done.
Buy a Trotec or XTool trust me they are far superior.
I realize this is not a dispassionate situation. Just recapping: from what I’ve seen, nobody is arguing that the chat should not be optional. You are passionately selling past the close. And for folks who are chiming in here, let’s repeat again: This forum is not the place to reach Glowforge staff. You should be sending your feedback directly to the company by e-mail. Second, the new Head of Customer Innovation, and the CEO, have heard and acknowledged that they’ve heard this feedback on the Discord. In keeping with their consistent practice since the beginning, they will not tell us if or what they’re working on until it’s done. I have no actual knowledge of what’s going on but my gut instinct is that there will be a better way to turn it off, and I also don’t expect it to appear for at least a few weeks. That is why I am suggesting alternatives for those impacted by it.
I don’t know. I work for one that has made a habit of regularly getting into the news for ticking off its customers. In my imagination, if they put me in charge I would make very different decisions and everything would be rainbows and ice cream. In reality, I’d probably get a harsh lesson on why those decisions were made as I run the place into the ground.
You can ask anything, but you’re asking in the wrong place, because none of us know. It’s also a good example of begging the question.
Again, you’re presuming to know the success metric for this launch and that it’s somehow based on you getting what you want. We’re all capable of oversight. If I apply some insight instead, I suspect that “driving engagement” was a goal here, and there’s no better way to do that than “default opt-in”. Look at that graph, I can hear them say in the meeting: 100% of customers who clicked print saw the chat. Hundreds of them signed up and participated in a very lively first day of chatting, sharing designs, tips and tricks, asking and answering questions, and learning about the Aura. By many measures (probably the ones that are being presented to quantify impact), this feature has been wildly successful. And despite all the complaining and threatening, I doubt there has been any detectable negative effect on usage or sales performance.
None of this negates how you feel personally or how it has affected you. Or me, or anyone else. But I feel the “couldn’t they have figured out this was going to bug people” line of reasoning is starting from an unsupported premise. I’m sure it came up in discussion, various options were considered, and an intentional decision was made to make it appear on every print (probably rationalizing that “there’s a hide button” as good enough). The entire tech industry does this all the time. Ask a voice assistant about the weather and it adds “By the way, did you know that I can also blah blah blah”. Open any app, there’s something popping up in your face trying to get you to try a feature, promote it to your friends, connect your socials, write them a review… Do I like this? Am I suggesting it’s a good practice that should be encouraged? Of course not. But I think these companies have done the math and come to the conclusion that they get a bigger return from aggressively promoting new features than they lose by irritating people.
You’re not understanding what I said I didn’t understand. I believe everything you say about how bad it is for you. What I don’t understand is that if it’s that bad, why refuse to block it? It is a very strange hill to die on. You have already registered your displeasure, and they’re either going to change it or they’re not. Refusing to spend 2 minutes setting up a filter will not change what Glowforge does, but it will give you back your peace and quiet.
I would not be happy, but I would turn it off. I’d rather lose the purity of my self-righteous indignation than crash my car.
Sorry, but here I’m going to disagree with you. You’ve stepped into an area I have expertise in, and that’s just now how computers work.
I have experienced it every. single. day. for over 40 years.
You seem to be contradicting your own statement by turning around and judging me and anyone else reading this. You know nothing about what difficulties I face and what diagnosis I have or don’t have. You don’t know my mental tortures. So please don’t tell me what I don’t understand.
In this, we are more alike than you might think. There is objectively no value to what I’ve spent all this time typing and editing and preparing. I don’t know why I am compelled to argue with people on the Internet, especially in a completely pointless discussion where I’m not even trying to contribute or change anyone’s mind. I have stopped and started this a dozen times and I’m only hitting the send button because delete feels even more wasteful.
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Do I ever know this feeling… The struggle is real!
FWIW your effort to bring some calm to the issue is appreciated.
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I sure wish I could like this post multiple times, Chris. Excellent job.
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I HATE that annoying new Chat on the side… and If I close it, I can’t see the time left on my project. I don’t have the time or energy to “chat” while I am working.
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The large timer leaves when you click “hide” but the smaller countdown in the upper right of the interface continues to be visible.
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The time left appears just above where you closed the window. It’s a bit smaller, but still clearly visible.
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Chris have you ever authored a book? You get your points across in a very eloquent way.
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Did you submit your thoughts to the support team?
Chris1 - that’s brilliant! Many thanks for the video instructions. A few moments work, and the eyesore of a chat mess is gone!
Just for anyone else: The ‘stylebot’ extension is available for the Edge browser, and it works perfectly (yes, I’m using Edge… don’t ask!).
Cheers,
John
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