I’m sorry to hear that! Please shoot a note to support@glowforge.com and they can get you set.
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I just wish they would ship PG materials to my country (Australia). We can’t get anything here, even spare parts.
You can’t get Proofgrade here in the US either! 
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As an owner who is primarily a hobbyist, but who uses Snapmarks to run jobs for other small businesses that help get my Glowforge to pay for itself, my position is closest to @kelly1’s. I get an order for a batch of brand engravings every couple months; one of these runs would pay for a year’s worth of Premium at the $15/mo rate, but I definitely don’t do enough to make it worth $50.
From what I’m seeing, it seems like there are 3 main points of friction on Premium: Messaging, incl. “fast lane” wording; removing an element of functionality (Snapmarks) for existing users*; confusing use-case intent for premium subscription.
For the first: I think it needs to be made clearer that jobs aren’t even being routed to the same machines. Not everyone understands the cloud processing/pay-per-cpu-cycle model backing the Glowforge service. The “Commerical rights” list point should also include “Catalog” to make it clearer.
On the second: Snapmarks disappeared from my interface a month or two ago, and I nearly had a panic attack–I was in the middle of a branding run for someone and was using a Snapmark-based jig. I had looked around at the time to see whether they’d be included in Premium, but was only finding the “beta support ending” message. They showed up again after a bit of cache maintenance, and when I didn’t see an explicit note that they were being included in Premium, I thought I didn’t have to worry about them actually disappearing. I understand that this was always a beta feature and not part of the core offering, but they’ve become a huge part of my process. A little more info in the interface about them becoming part of premium would’ve padded the blow.
That dovetails into the third: I can’t tell if “Premium” is intended for cut-but-don’t-design/“home+” use-cases (a la Cricut Access), or for designers/“pro” use-cases. Snapmarks, for example, seem more geared toward the pro side, as does the processing time upgrade, but there’s not much else there so far in that persona’s set of features. I may be off-base, but I’d expect other people making money from their Glowforges to need more in the way of batch tooling, design/project/print run organization and tracking, having more common materials (like Baltic birch plywood) and user-customizable materials in the materials library, and other “productivity” features, but the design, text (as it currently is–having a “mail merge” feature would change this), and clipart features don’t seem like part of that. The catalog probably falls somewhere in-between.
I’m subscribed for now, but I probably won’t stay just for Snapmarks.
*This isn’t exactly the same situation Amy Hoy describes in her article on raising SaaS prices, given that the current price is $0/mo, but it’s not dissimilar.
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Can you clear up what snap marks are? I just recently got my house to the point where I could unbox my glowforge and have printed all of 2 things now. Super confused if I need to drop $15 a month in case I need the features later.
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Snapmarks give you a way to align a cut precisely around something that has been printed in an Inkjet (or laser) ink printer. Basically they are registration marks that tie in the movement of the laser beam with something that was not included in the same file.
(Digital cutters use something similar for files called Print and Cut files.)
Basically, it lets you do things like this with the laser, without spending a lot of time lining things up visually.
Printed Boxes
Stickers:
Pepakura:
You can use it to align Passthrough prints, although their new free software is better:
Create jigs:
Other cool toys:
Yeah, I think it’s worth it. 
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Just want to weigh in - probably only read half of the discussion because I think I am unlike most on this forum. I am a casual user of the Glowforge. It isn’t even mine - a friend bought it I think 3 years before it shipped and didn’t have a place to house it. So, first thing is that it sounds like sharing a GF is okay, but we wouldn’t be sharing Premium - we’d both have to pay. Wow.
Next is that we are hobbiests. Between the two of us we probably average one project a month - MAX. Less during COVID since she can’t come over to use it. We don’t sell anything we make - have had a few gifts. So there is no “value proposition” here for getting our money’s worth. $15 or $50 per month are both pretty huge increases in the cost of use for our usage level.
I can’t fathom why I would want any of the design tools being offered in premium. I much prefer a model of designing outside the GF and having full control of my design. Not all designs are targeted to the GF so it would mean trying to keep current on multiple design platforms. Again, I emphasize our low usage and note that even with ONE design tool, I have forgotten many tricks by the next time.
The one item within Premium that makes me care about this at all is SnapMarks. I can’t begin to explain the frustration with this tool I experienced the first 2 years due to it only having “visual alignment”. Even after the calibration, it falls woefully short of a “tool”. I am a lifelong wood worker and build jigs for things routinely. Precision is the art. Build my own miterboxes and rip fences to get that precision. I tried dozens of work-arounds with the GF and none was satisfactory - in fact I am pretty sure I have more operations on trying to find a solution than I have with actual projects. Until SnapMarks. They work and made me finally feel like the machine was delivered as a tool. Only discovered we had them a couple months ago.
So you can imagine how I felt reading this and learning that this thing that seems to be a most basic requirement of the device will now be costing a monthly fee, whether I use it or not. Aside from the coming election, I can’t think of anything I find more frustrating and stressful. It feels so unfair.
I won’t be subscribing. Not now, when SnapMarks as still working and I’d be paying $180/year for no value added. Certainly can’t afford $600/year later on. There might be some possibility that I would save up a years worth of projects and subscribe for a month to get them done, but probably not. Nor can I imaging paying $50 per project if I didn’t save up.
So, if and when my SnapMarks are taken away, knowing that I am stuck with a handicapped machine will make me resentful and cease to be an advocate of the GF. That would be a sad day. I haven’t talked with my 2 neighbors who also own GFs to see what they think.
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In the original announcement of the snapmark beta, it was stated that if they were released, they might be part of a premium subscription.
My machine certainly wasn’t “handicapped” before they existed, and won’t be when they are taken away.
You got HBO free for two years, whether you watched it or not. If it’s worth something to you, you can subscribe to continue.
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From the update announcement:
- Added members - Your membership is not just for you! Each paid member can invite two friends and family members to share their benefits.
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classy
There’s only so much willful ignoring of logic I can take. I’ve reached that limit a long time ago in this thread. So classy or not… It’s apropos.
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…Snapmarks… (I know , I know…)
You did notice the the original poster was massively frustrated with the value proposition BEFORE the announcement? Clearly there were misunderstandings in the post, and your reply cleared some of those up. All of that was nullified with the “Nor am I an entitled little {censored}”, leaving the situation worse than it originally was.
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Thanks Jules. Nice work and that clears up snap lines. I was under the impression that the GF already had a copy utility (I haven’t found it yet) but couldn’t you just load the tray, have it generate an outline and use that?
For all the clipart and such in Pro, as long as someone has Inkscape or Corel Draw for designing stuff seems like this isn’t a big deal (or am I missing something?).
Thanks again,
Casey
Ctrl C to copy and Ctrl V to paste works!
Yes, if one has other programs for designing they don’t need Premium. I think it will appeal to many of the hobbyists though.
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What is considered a Legacy Customer? I have this design store feature currently and we purchased our machine back in early 2019.
You’re a Legacy customer. (All current owners are Legacy customers.)
(SnapMarks are not an automatic Legacy benefit though…they will only go to subscribers to Premium according to my understanding.)
And everyone currently gets a free trial of all the Premium benefits until the end of the month.
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I’m not sure what comments you got when you tried to sell your machine but when you mentioned that you were trying to sell your GF I thought this was an opportunity for me to get a second machine at a reduced price since I am quite happy with mine. Looking through what you have posted in the community about your machine, I decided that you got a lemon and didn’t even bother reaching out and making an offer.
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