This is the whole premise of what made Glowforge different from other laser cutters. It seems silly to me that people buy a Glowforge and then complain about one of its most fundamental design features, which was NEVER hidden from them to begin with!
You don’t have to pay for it if you don’t want to. The premium features are NOT NECESSARY for using your $5000+ machine. Many of us have been doing just fine without them for going on 3 years now.
I feel just the way you do, too.
Yup, I understand. Sad but true.
Thanks for the clarification @dan . It’s a bit disappointing that I’m being forced to sign-up now as a one time only offer and maintain a subscription in order to get the discounted price.
Looking at the premium features I’m a hobbyist like many others and don’t use my Glowforge very frequently. The only feature that has now been classified as premium that I care about is Snapmarks. These I use on many of my projects and foresee using it for a long time. The price of the Premium subscription however is too much for this one feature in my opinion.
It would be nice to have a bit more of an a-la-carte price for Snapmarks or even a lifetime one-time cost for that specific key, and important (to me), feature. Is that or has it been considered?
I agree. Not only do you not need to pay to use your Glowforge Pro, you will never need to.
It has. Unfortunately, once you split things up so each benefit is a la carte, none of the benefits make business sense to build out because the market for each would be smaller. Putting them together increases the audience for each one, and lets us build more great stuff for everyone. That said, everyone’s opinion here is valuable, and we’re always looking to improve.
I understand that from a business perspective. From this user’s perspective, it will look like the following: Everytime I would have used snapmarks I will be reminded of why I can’t - because I have absolutely no use for or interest in anything else in the subscription, and I won’t be paying $50 a month for just snapmarks. So, either I collect all my snapmark jobs up and subscribe for a month, cancelling again immediately after, or I go back to using jigs and workarounds with the knowledge that there would be an easier way. This will make using the Glowforge a more negative experience on the whole… I’m sure that’s not what you want, but if companies have to choose between business and customer satisfaction, business tends to win out.
None of these companies sell expensive hardware to their customers and then expect them to pay a subscription fee to have access to newly-developed features.
For $40, I bought a lifetime license to use LightBurn, including all future software upgrades.
For the premium price they charge for the same hardware that is in a $400 Chinese laser, GlowForge should be putting ALL of their best development efforts into improving their baseline product and support model for all customers.
I would have trouble convincing myself to pay even $5/month recurring fee for the features offered.
…Except that now, if I didn’t purchase a first class ticket, I have to wait extra time while the “elite” passengers board ahead of me and block the aisles when I try to board.
Your analogy is spot-on. Your assumption that a company can diversify its product offerings without compromising each individual product is not.
The company will increasingly focus on keeping the first class passengers happy. Those of us in steerage will inevitably suffer.
Don’t get me wrong, I like My Glowforge. But let’s pick your $1,000 air filter. In your current specs there is no mention that the filter only has a life span of 10 ± hours and a hugh $200+ replacement cost. If I was willing and did spend the extra money for the filter ( which if I had know or it displayed the life span) I would not of bought. But I would still have that $1,000 to purchase proofgrade material from Glowforge. There are parts being omitted or placed in hard to find places to help customers make better choices. Yes it mentions wifi, but where does it mention cloud services and saving to your computer. Yes you have that now, but will it be for the NOW paid monthly Premium. Waiting to see how all this turns out
I understand the point, and if FastLane took the place of regular, I would agree. But the way it has been described, I do believe it’s like the dual boarding model that typically occurs in larger planes with multiple gate bridges.
And, I would add, the flights are scheduled based on overall demand, not first class demand. If they really have priced it out of the market, like some first class tickets, there won’t be that many flying “up front” and they’ll either have to lower the price, or add more to make it attractive. Regardless, I really do believe that Dan and Co. are committed to making it good for all.
As a software developer (and architect for an IoT company) I can assure you that GlowForge is not a large enough organization to divide its efforts among multiple development priorities without some tradeoffs.
I would have very little problem with the offering of a paid premium service if the features of the free tier were adequate for basic use. IMHO, they drew the line a bit low for what features needed to be in the paid tier. They still have work to do to better support the use case for those of us who design outside of the GFUI - layout, centering, arranging multiple parts, etc.
Free content is nice, but many of us have zero interest in ever using any of it. I would have expected them to offer the content library as a separate product. Why would I pay for “commercial use” licenses for content I have no interest in ever using?
Agreed. Those, I do believe, should be offered as part of the basic tier.
Factually incorrect.
Super easy solution – if you don’t think Glowforge Premium is worth $15, then Don’t. Subscribe. To. It.
Not far off. Drop in a $30 Raspberry Pi and a $20 webcam and it’s the same machine. (Believe me, I own all of them.) The point being, GF charge a premium price for the benefit of being a “real” company that will continue to support their product. That premium price tag should be able to support some amount of ongoing support and development, particularly for a machine that has an expected laser lifetime of only two years before needing replacement.
I do not plan to subscribe. I already offered my feedback that, to me, even $5/mo. would be a stretch for the features both offered today and promised in the future.
At the vary least. You might want to compare power supplies – if you can find a $400 laser that can vary power the same way as the GF, I’d be surprised.
Anyhoo… enjoy your righteous indignation. I’m not going to change you mind, nor you mine. I don’t have any problem paying for value received, but hey – that’s just me.
PWM laser power modulation is a simple modification on any K40, and can be managed by a $10 Arduino board. But I’m sure you already knew that.
Or simple grounding. Mine had the proper plug but inside the grounding wire was disconnected 
No safety interlocks at all. Manual laser & mirror focus (ask me about burning a hole in my thumb). Not to mention it was controlled by unsupported & pirated software.
The tube was a nominal 40W but measured a true 32W. The “40W” was the over driven value achieved only at the expense of lifespan.
Other than that, yeah, just the same 
But it was a good intro to lasering for a techie comfortable with tinkering. It led me to the RedSail and after that the GF.
[quote=“jamesdhatch, post:516, topic:73532”]
The tube was a nominal 40W but measured a true 32W. The “40W” was the over driven value achieved only at the expense of lifespan.[/quote]
Every laser tube on the market has a power vs. lifespan tradeoff, even the GF tube.
My K40s are every bit as capable as my GlowForge, and are not dependent on a cloud component or a network connection. The point being, if I were setting out to produce a roughly-equivalent commercial product at 10X the price of the existing technology, I could surely price in some amortized support costs. Cloud computing isn’t free, but there is NO WAY that the average customer is costing GF anything close to $50/month to support. Not even $50/year.
When you buy a GlowForge, you are paying a premium for support and ease of use. That was the deal. Now it just feels like the company is walking away from that deal before they’ve fully delivered on that promise.
The GRBL firmware is open source freeware. A lifetime license to use LightBurn will cost you $40 - $80. The “stolen” software supplied with most off-brand lasers is the equivalent of design software, which is also not provided “in the box” by GlowForge.
If a hobbyist can build a GF equivalent in their basement for 1/10th the price, then the company should also be able to do it at scale. Their pricing structure already factors in that they will provide cloud support amortized over the lifetime of the machine.
if they never introduced premium, this would still be true. there is no indication (other than some unsubstantiated speculation) that they will stop cloud support over the lifetime of the machine.
after they introduced premium, the only way this isn’t true is if you presume they’re going to screw over anyone who doesn’t pay for additional features that weren’t promised with the original machine.
if you believe they’re looking to screw over current customers, we have a different viewpoint, and i doubt there’s any point in arguing it (we won’t change each other’s minds). but there’s no indication that they’re going to stop doing what they committed to doing when they sold us the machines, just speculation that because they’re a company they will do bad things to force people to pay extra.
I never said they are looking to screw over current customers.
I did say:
The company should not need to charge a recurring fee to support “fast lane” cloud services for a product that has an operational lifespan of only two years.
It strikes me as a poor choice to bundle free content in with other features like faster cloud processing or better layout features. If the royalties and licensing fees are driving the $50/month price point, this should be a separate product offering for those customers who would actually use it.
For those who say “it’s only $15” - just no. Unless the company makes that the permanent price for all customers, they are buying (y)our advocacy by giving us an artificially lower price.
To me, the premium service would be a hard sell at $5/month, even if all promised future features were available today. YMMV.
I trust that Dan and Co. will take my feedback in the constructive vein that is intended.