Couldn’t agree more.
Some people like to play the martyr.
As someone who gave serious thought to bailing after one or another delay announcement and my frustration with how they played out I ended up asking myself “Do I believe they’re lying or that they’re plowing new ground and simply don’t know what they don’t know?” And, “is there something else that will do what you hope this will do?” And finally I asked myself “is there anyone else suggesting they are working on something that will do what the GF is trying to do?”
That last one was a yes (to some extent) and we’ve seen how that one crashed and burned on launch.
If I were from one of the 80(!) countries where the cost of shipping renders the warranty valueless I’d have to decide if the promise of the GF was worth going without a warranty (or knowing that servicing it will cost a not insignificant portion of the price of the machine). Somewhere along the lines I’d expect I would have had to put on my big boy panties and decided to stay or to go and stop whining about the unfairness of the world and slandering someone I was going to have to rely on in the future.
I used to be a fairly vocal critic of Dan’s communication style (bad news is like fish - it doesn’t age well before it stinks). But I figured out that I’m not walking in his shoes so I don’t know what he has to wrestle with in terms of external drivers or controls. I also see enough parallels with similar decisions I have to make on a daily business and I’ve realized it’s my issue, not a true reflection of him and I admire his ability to weather the storms and go to work everyday to bring this to market.
I honestly believe no one is being deliberately deceptive but if someone does, I do believe they should take their money and run. If you continue to support someone you think is dishonest then you are only encouraging them and enabling them - you are now what you accuse them of as you sacrifice principle & morals for a shiny trinket.
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Exactly this. ^^^
They are horrible, dishonest people!!! But I want what they have so I will keep company with them…
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I believe the qualification is that it needs to be able to make passable BBQ.
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We’ll need them to re-enable the low power engraving mode. Right now it’s running too hot for proper low&slow 'cue. 
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Scam, swindle and fraud are not applicable words while you can still get your money back in these days of minimal bank interest.
The original marketing and all the updates except the last one (at this point) have been proved to be dishonest though. Deliberate deception, not naivety about how long things take. For example telling people at BAMF that production units were shipping and still saying all orders would ship before end of August.
Units were definitely not shipping then and does anybody seriously think at that point they didn’t know they were four months behind schedule? Production was supposed to be hundreds in February but only started in June. And did they suddenly realise this at the time of the June update? Of course not, they knew at the time of the show and waited until a few production units were delivered to deliver the bad news. Exactly the same as the last schedule update. They kept saying they were on track for December deliveries right until marmak3261 received the first PRU at the beginning of December.
This^^^
When they actually fill all the orders and implement all the missing features they will no longer need to try to hide how far behind they are. Then they might morph into an honest company at that point. But I doubt they will ever be open with any technical information about the machine. For example how is 1-100% mapped to wattage? We will have to work it all out ourselves.
As for international customers being at a disadvantage: yes very much so, but I can’t see how it could be otherwise with such a big heavy product requiring safety approvals. Of course I can get a big heavy machine from China for about the same as I am paying for shipping of the GF but somehow they have cheaper shipping and ignore approvals.
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and it still won’t work as well without a number of upgrades, and at that point…
No but it puts the difference in shipping rates and concern for safety into sharp relief. How on earth can they ship a big heavy metal box from China to the UK and pay for the machine for less than it costs to ship the GF and its filter from the US?
Shipping costs are asymmetric.
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i’m not sure what you mean. are you simply suggesting that the chinese lasers cut enough corners to make it happen, that gf is swindling you on shipping, or…?
The Chinese don’t bother complying with safety standards. That will save them a lot of money.
US shipping cost are very high. Chinese ones are very low.
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sure. not a lot that can be done about at this stage in the game, though, with limited numbers of shipments. fwiw, shipping the big lasers from china would cost me something similar to the glowforge shipping for international customers. it is what it is.
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So Glowforge actually caring about safety and complying with the law is a bad thing? The biggest cost factor to the customer in international shipping of anything like this is costs and restrictions imposed by their own government. People are talking about tariffs, VAT, and the like. Those are being imposed by your own country. Your government has decided to increase your costs, and VAT doesn’t apply solely to imports from outside.
Yes, the costs suck, but they are not originating with Glowforge.
I originally thought this thread was about costumes.
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I’m torn two ways, leaving it be and correcting. I can see merits in both.
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Haha. I left it. I think it prepares you for the continued absurdity within
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That, and I didn’t want to be needlessly insensitive towards those form whom English is not their first language.
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Thank God my sense of humor has been restored this morning.
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No I am not complaining about the shipping cost and the VAT and I certainly don’t think ignoring safety is a good thing. I was responsible for it at the company I worked for when I was R&D manager just around the time CE became mandatory in the UK. I am just pointing out it isn’t a level playing field. Somehow the Chinese can ship things to me much cheaper than I can ship to them. And it seems I can ship to the US cheaper than US companies can ship to me.
When I sold 3D printers to the world a lot went to the USA because they got them VAT free. The shipping was a bit more but a lot less than the VAT we had to charge local customers. And US customers didn’t pay import duty on 3D printers, so they got a much better deal than local customers.
So international trade is full of unfairness and inequality.
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That is the single, best, one-sentence way to summarize and explain that.
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Agreed.
My company ships and receives worldwide, and I am amazed at the difference in just shipping cost. It costs us so much more to ship something OS, than it costs to ship something here from the same place. It baffles me every time.
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