From my perspective, lets take a recent use case.
The March update came to the forum. There are something like 10,000 pre-orders that would be affected by the original announcement; but only those who use the forum read the update. As a collective, we protested clearly, vocally, and with lots of personal use cases and reasons. We provided lots of ideas. We asserted our tolerances and expectations. We motivated a change of policy in fewer than 24 hours.
We (collectively as the active forum readers) made a significant contribution for the benefit of every one of the 10,000 pre-orders.
We (collectively as the active forum readers) made a significant contribution to the success of the Glowforge company. How many would truly have cancelled over this? What revenue lost?
The numbers in this reward plan… Dan suggested that the first hundred or two hundred would go to significant contributors. He also said that they have moved to the full production lines, which means that they will be able to “scale up to thousands [of units per month] starting in April.” He’s planning on shipping several thousand by July-August. 200 out of 10000 is 2%.
He has promised that your place in line is yours, “All things being equal.” He and his team think that there is some extra merit worth rewarding. And he told you how to merit that reward.