As a business owner…if you dont have products otherthan your main one such as the Glowforge itself, then where are you going to make extra money to expand your business? Thats why companies exist…to make money…
Its not uncommon to have branded products for sale that work with your main product.
The obviously choice in this case is GF branded materials and cut files…
Not good business to give stuff away for free.
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The idea is less about making money for GlowForge than it is about making money for the artists who put together the designs. Artists get asked to work for free an obscene amount of time, and sadly it isn’t until an artist is already capable of making a living off of their own work that most of them realize they should not need to do so.
I hope they allow users to submit a few free designs to the catalog, or to reduce the price on their work occasionally to offer sales. I hope they have a few SIMPLE design templates (basically cut only, no engrave, and straight lines, no flair) free on the market from their internal design team. But they should not put up any designs which are actually attractive enough to resell for free, as it sets a bar for everyone else, or corners out a segment of the market.
Yes, that means completely non-artistic folk like myself are left either paying or muddling through on our own. But that SHOULD be how it is, artistic ability is worth money.
Yes… the artists employed by Glowforge are employed and get a paycheck. I doubt they are paid on commission from their design sales. But they (and their designs) are a company resource. Having everything that they do for free means that they (the artist, as an employee) drain company finances (paycheck) and return no value (everything they do is being given away freely). Why would any company employ someone specifically to drain company funds?
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Unless it’s 150 wholesale dollars worth of high quality materials to get the customer started, plus a years worth of 10% off, no questions asked, no limit stated for a whole year of those same quality materials. apparently that’s not free enough
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i can appreciate the time that goes in to making a clean production video but even dirty videos would be pretty darn awesome to most of us geeks ie some quick and dirty from a cell phone video during laser Thursday when something nifty is being cut up.
as for all the people complaining about having to pay for design’s IMO design is art and artiest deserve to be compensated for the huge effort that goes into it. if I went and took someone’s design and printed off 1000 and sold that product and made money on it and the artist got nothing that would be a pretty scum bag move
I don’t understand why people are giving dan a hard time about throwing in extra material he didn’t need to. I also don’t understand why the hard time about them selling raw stock, its a perfect dovetail to single source all your projects from what place but your not forced to get designs or stock from GF. you are fully able to source your own stock and design or find cut files else where your not locked in no one is saying you must get these items from GF. your device will work just fine with out the extra stuff GF can provide. its like going to the grocery store and on one shelf you have a block of cheddar and next to it you have a pre sliced block of cheddar and you complain that the pre sliced is 15% extra in cost. this is what I call a convince tax you could have gone home and cut it your self (heck I own a deli slicer if you have seen my jerky photo :))
ultimately we are buying a laser that is at 1/4 the price of what is available on the market now from other company’s. so asking for more free stuff seems rude, we are not investors we are buyers and anyone that thought other wise should re consider. also it took me a hot 30 seconds in oct to realize that this project would be blown out way past the expected ship date this is why I delayed until earlier this month. no one should plan a business on something that doesn’t exist yet nor should say they have lost revenue based on a theoretical plan that is based again on something that doesn’t exist.
I think that what GF is doing is great they are making a device and coming up with a way to provide cut, plan, stock so that everyone person has a easy way of exploring this universe that previously was reserved for the geeks. things like this take time and no one knows what that project plan will be until doing it. I have been on projects with a 5 year plan that 4 years in have a new 5 year plan etc…
<3
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agreed.
All a matter of perspective. The decisions we make under a certain set of circumstances will vary depending on our emotional state of mind.
Sometimes we (I don’t exclude myself) have trouble seeing further than our navel.
I’m not rude. I’m not selfish. I value design and the work that goes into it - as a person who makes a living off the back of my creative efforts, it would be hypocritical for me to suggest otherwise.
I don’t see the issue with raising a question about company-submitted designs, but clearly I’m in the minority, so I’ll let it drop. Unfortunately I think I’ll have to stop participating in the forum as heavily, because I’m getting attacked and insulted for having questions and stating my (apparently totally unreasonable) opinions.
I have to say, I feel more and more unwelcome around this place as time goes on, and I’ve been participating pretty regularly, either in social media or the forum, since the week the company exited stealth mode. I am deeply appreciative of the general feeling of openness the company executives have shown, which is why I keep coming back, but.
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Personally, I like your input. It’s usually reasonable and well thought out, and as you said, not rude.
We have the distinct disadvantage of attempting to communicate an idea with syllables composed of grunts and other noises. Many times in mid sentence I hear a different interpritation of my thought as it issues from my mouth. ( first clue was the look on their face)
In text we don’t have the benefit of inflection or body language. It can be difficult. Many times my wife and I miss the other’s meaning, and we do have the benefit of each other’s proximity!
Bottom line is it’s open to interpretation and assumption.
You have been a valued member of the community, and it would be a shame for it to be diminished by your absence.
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If they are free then it doesn’t matter if they appear on the invoice or not. The total value we have paid remains the same, so the invoice total must remain the same, so the import tax remains the same.
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I have a Silhouette Cameo for two months. I got access to their design catalog for a month. Even then, I realized I had to spend much more on getting appropriate materials. Since I wasn’t sure about what would work, I couldn’t rely on locally scrounged stuff, other than cardstock and paper. My cutter is sitting there mostly unused because I first had to pay an extra $50 to be able to use free Inkscape designs. Then I had to make my own designs. I agree that it would be wonderful if the Glowforge could do a better job than Silhouette in terms of providing designs that put the forge to use right away with common materials. In recent months, I have come to the conclusion that the revenue stream of subscription services are just too useful to forgo. Companies do well and many, many customers are served. I hope you stick around and I hope we all can respond to your posts with empathy and objectvity.
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I like having your input, @jrnelson. I just think there might have been some miscommunication, is all. It’d be a shame for us to lose that feedback. Please don’t let frustration get the better of you thinking we don’t respect it.
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For those that don’t know, I remember that @jrnelson was the very first person to attain regular status followed very close by @jkopel. JR, I’m thinking some comment must have pushed a button with you. Sitting on the outside I had not noticed anyone taking any of your positions personally. Sure, minor disagreements with a point or two but I’ve got a long list of folks that really, really, disagree with me. As long as folks don’t make it personal I’ll buy a beer for any of you.
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It’s been hot on the forums this week. This discussion thread, most particularly. The perspectives and opinions are so different that we all disagree with somebody, and not everybody is able to keep emotion out.
Don’t. Stick around. Take a week off if you’d like things to cool down.
If I’ve offended with my responses, I apologize. Aside from one comment to one person, I haven’t thought I was being offensive; but we all have to add the inflection into what we read.
You’re an asset in these forums, and your perspective is wanted.
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No, I definitely see what @jrnelson is saying. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but from reading through, you’re definitely on “the outs” here on the forums if you’re even remotely critical of GF.
I for one will stick around a bit more and completely forget about this machine until I receive another email stating some significant progress. I’m happy to see the threads with the one, singular ( public ) beta tester showing what this machine can do, its super encouraging. Its what most of us want to see…some development, trials, and errors.
Which is kind of why I’m boggled as to how GF is able to develop more off shoots, Proofgrade, instead of focusing 100% on the machine that will carry the rest of the revenue generating upsells. I’m taking into consideration that they’d like to develop an entire network for both sharing, selling, and creating a community along with the GF release…BUT, speaking from my own interest, I only care about the machine itself and the User Interface. The rest is just fluff to me, again, that’s just my perspective.
My wife does work from home and this GlowForge was kind of a gift to both of us, me being a geek, and for her possibly being able to branch out in different directions with her products, as they say, if you don’t evolve you’re stuck. So I can understand how some of these small businesses saw the GF and their minds ran wild with new ideas and possibilities, but you can’t rely on any piece of equipment until its in your hands ( even then, maybe ). There is an upside though, plenty of time for you to sketch out new ideas.
There was definitely a healthy dose of misdirection with all the advertisements, reviews, non functional h/w, when the pre-order campaign was happening…all these fantastic items being developed and assembled from this new technology that looked like a glorious Apple-like box of laser cutting goodness. I thought this thing was in the last phases of development when viewing the advertisements. I understood the concept though and the strengths of all the features it touted and got just as excited as some of you. But when the first couple of reports came back from that maker fair where “the sunlight threw off the optics” and the air filtration was non functional, and the external power supply, along with the deflective responses when asked about certain technical aspects, I came back to reality never posting to these boards until receiving this last email stating a new 2017 shipment date. I see alot of fan-fair here, some cheerleaders, which is great…I get it. But some of the buyers here have gone through HUGE sacrifices to get this machine paid off ( I’m sure expecting to earn some income while using it to help pay for the loans )…and the responses of some of you people calling them emotional, rude, or tongue and cheek mocking their frame of reference is what I see to be somewhat rude. There was definitely some clever marketing to sucker in people with ZERO TECHNICAL ABILITY. Which is why I’m sure alot of buyers jumped in. This means all those tech savvy people who unlike myself and some of you, who don’t risk thousands on building at home CNC’s or 3D printers, or other machines that can be viewed as technically advanced by a common person, probly bought this expecting to hit a button and whip out some cool cut outs of family portraits or cardboard stencils for their kids projects. As surprising as it may be, yes, this news is kind of shocking to others not “in the know”.
It’s an incredible task to develop this machine and an incredible list of features from a machine of this size, so I’ll wait and hope all goes well. Good luck to the GF staff, I wish them boundless precision and steadfastness.
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I don’t see that so much. Critical of GF has been recieved well. Critical of GF’s intentions and otherwise attempting to project a view that the company is evil or malicious, those I have seen people respond to with sufficient fervor to appear hostile.
At least, in the threads/posts which I have managed to read. Quite a bit of late has been hectic to keep up with.
When people respond with doom and gloom projections, it is appropriate for other people to reply with the equally plausible sunshine and rainbows scenarios. If for no better reason than to contribute ideas to the team on how to avoid the doom and gloom.
Of course, where each individual person defines the line between “Critical of the company” and “Critical of the ethics of the company” is likely incredibly varied.
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@erick407a Thank you for a perfectly fair and reasonable counter-point to our rah-rah. I really enjoyed reading it and promise to take it to heart.
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Not sure if I am one who made you feel this way but I tend to write out exactly what I am thinking without a social correct filter. Sorry if I came across wrong at any point, hard to convey emotion and inflection in black and white text.
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I really appreciate your post. I especially agree that there was some less than tactful responses to some very passionate posts. And there seems to be a preponderance of posts that are immediately critical of any post that portrays Glowforge in negative light, especially if there are value judgments about character and intentions. Unfortunately, the responses are often filled with judgments about character and intentions too. My un-censored gut reaction to a materials and design store is something like, “Yes, I guess that is ok for amateurs.” And I am eager to know how product development is going. If I have been critical in my posts about Glowforge, it has been precisely about the disconnect between the face value of the advertisement and the reality of product development.
I have quoted your post above because it illustrates a different conclusion than I have drawn about that disconnect. Clever marketing, yes. I would be loath to use the verb “sucker”. That may have been the result, in my case, and shame on me, but it is a value judgment on the intentions of Glowforge. And this is where my personality and fan-boy status kicks in. I really don’t think there was an intent by Glowforge to deceive folks during the pre-order month. It really is amazing to me how unwilling I am to admit bad motives regarding Dan or any of the founders. At the moment, I want to point to Mad Men and say, yes, this is what consumer publicity does. It creates artificial expectations that will always come crashing to the ground. Yes, I can blame the advertising company!
I guess what I am doing is trying to model, if I can, a post that is a response to words in another post that don’t sit well with me and further the conversation, and hope that we can all avoid pouring gas on the fire (or putting PVC in the laser) when we respond to posts that ruffle us. It’s so funny to me that I am 99% in agreement with everything in your post, but I only focus on the things that rile me. I am really using this as an opportunity to mindfully examine my own thoughts and feelings and do my best to learn from that self-awareness. Thanks for listening.
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Awesome!!! That is going to be a new favorite.
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I’ll definitely agree the word “sucker” was most likely the wrong word to use, I don’t believe they have bad intentions honestly. But I do always appreciate a Mad Men reference 
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