You are implying that something was taken away. None of those features existed before the subscription, so you don’t lose anything by not purchasing it.
I was not promised design tools when I bought my machine, and I don’t feel like I “fell for” anything, other than owning a laser cutter and getting to make cool stuff with it.
Agreed. The GF UI is just a print driver. The subscription is primarily for access to designs for those unable to use real design software and create them theirselves. I’ve never had use for any - I have credits for designs as an original “founder” and I’ve never seen anything I would have any use for.
True, however… they are VERY Basic and FREE with other lasers… I would have never purchased a $6,000 machine had I known before that I was going to spend even MORE $$$ to make it anything more than a glorified Laser saw! It’s on me though, for not doing my research first…. Just saying, better is out there and readily available … and I won’t fall for it again. Early purchaser’s should have been grandfathered in, in my opinion.
maybe free with some other consumer lasers, but not with all lasers. i know when i work with the universal laser, their UI is literally a print driver, so there are zero tools to manipulate anything but bed positioning and laser settings in their UI. you can’t scale, rotate, add items, or anything at all with Universal.
not sure of the reasoning behind this? early purchasers purchased knowing none of those tools were available.
i mean, i can understand an argument that users want some of those premium features as part of the UI without paying a subscription, but it was obvious they didn’t exist in 2015-2018 (or 19?) before GF launched premium and added them.
Early purchasers got a trial period for free. I never had any use for the “tools”, clipart or text - or designs we had access to. There’s nothing in “premium” worth paying for, for me. Why would I want to limit myself to that when I can get a fully-functional tool (Inkscape) for free.
That said, I love my machine, had no issues in the first 5 years until the tube wore out (expected), and am happy to have a replacement.
I had to look back at the history, and I see how prescient I was.
For my next trick, I’d like to predict that Glowforge is working on more than one thing at a time and the real “Glowforge 2.0” has yet to be seen.
I would not buy a new Glowforge at the new price because they have some real competition now.
But AFAIK if you have a Glowforge now, and it develops a fault, they will sell you a refurb for less than $2k, right? I don’t think I can buy another laser as capable for the price of the refurb, and that alone may keep me in the family if mine needs replacing.
Honestly even that is a bit of a stretch for me at this point. With the laser boom also came flooding of laser made products. My sales were pretty poor before but they dropped even further after that.
Yeah you nailed it.
My turn:
In another forum there was some discussion about what the future looked like with respect to subscriptions. I said:
You know one way to neatly sidestep this and a whole host of other problems is to make [subscriptions] mandatory and consequently less expensive. Otherwise Glowforge is incentivized to keep making the subscription features more and more appealing which will eventually make it de facto mandatory anyway.
My contention was that as soon as you create a voluntary subscription model the vast majority of software projects will be for subscribers only. It’s been a few years now, I’d say that was a bullseye.
Nobody liked my mandatory monthly subscription idea at the time, they probably still don’t. But to me the subscription isn’t the problem, the fact that it’s fifty dollars is just wild. Should be more like $5, imo… seemed like that would be more money overall while leveling the field in terms of the features they chose to work on.
We have no clue as to the sub revenue numbers but it’s still chugging along so we can infer that someone has done the math by now. I was either wrong about the economics of the whole thing or there are other factors at play — either way the sub model remains “voluntary” and expensive.
But I was dead on correct about software dev priorities.
Well, just because they came out with a smaller one, doesn’t, IMHO, mean the won’t come out with a larger one.
Larger, rotating fixture to allow for glasses etc. probably figured they could raise a lot more $$$ quickly with the smaller one, flowing into schools etc. build an even larger customer base and then come out with Glowforge XXXL Extra Extra Extra Large 
That would be extra extra extra cool 
I suggest calling it “Glowforge Venture”
If you dial in the settings just right, it’ll be full body tattoo and hair removal.
Major Goldfinger vibes there.
Exactly.
Welp, here you go!
"We made this: Introducing Glowforge Aura, the first-ever Craft Laser - YouTube "
(… in this month’s update from Dan…)
Funny. I consider the original Glowforge is the first-ever craft laser.
Now you’re talking
