That’s… A very strong reaction.
I’ve never had snap marks so maybe I’m missing out. Apparently it’s enough to make you go crazy if they even hint that you might not be able to do it for free anymore.
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they didn’t just hint. it’s behind the paywall now.
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I guess what I’m saying is that we haven’t gotten confirmation that they’re not going to grandfather people yet. It might be premature to give yourself hypertension over it.
And beyond that in this day and age? This isn’t an uncommon thing. Look at Adobe, they put the entire creative suite behind a paywall. People complained but the vast bulk stayed.
It’s hard to be too surprised about it if they keep it paywalled is all I’m saying.
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well, multiple people have emailed them and gotten no response, and it’s already behind the paywall. for now, it’s definitely not grandfathered.
at this point, if it gets grandfathered in, it will likely be because people complain vociferously. so i think it’s proper that people show how upset it’s made them. otherwise, it’s less likely to be retroactively grandfathered.
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I have a different take. The complaining won’t matter. It’s all about the philosophy of the company’s owners against their bottom line.
We have a history of them grandfathering things in.
We have a history of them releasing things before they’re fully baked.
This is both.
If their philosophy or bottom line has changed then I won’t expect the grandfathering to continue. Complaints would have been expected and already figured into things.
Like here’s a question: should I get grandfathered? I’ve been around as long as tom_a, but never had beta snapmarks. If not why not? It’s a weird slope and edge cases lead to support costs.
Another way to think of it:
If they’re SO valuable to you, like critical to your workflow, $20/month doesn’t seem too much to pay for it. Cost and value are different things.
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well, just like adobe lost people when they went subscription, this could be the “one more thing” that sours someone on GF. it’s a reminder of how easily they can remove your features and put them behind the paywall.
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I wonder how Adobe did financially in the aftermath? Ever seen any numbers?
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Huh. Gpt says:
Baseline facts we’ll use
• Pre-Creative Cloud (2011–2012), Adobe’s creative revenue was roughly $3.4–3.5B/yr.
• Today (FY 2024), Creative Cloud ARR is ~$13.85B and Digital Media revenue is ~$15.86B/yr.So their core creative business is basically 4× the size it used to be.
Not sure what this means here, if anything, but it’s interesting.
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yeah, they’re not doing poorly. they made that change in the middle of a huge growth spurt for the graphic design industry. early 2000s companies were getting far more serious about their internal design teams. when i first started in the industry in the 90s, there were far fewer in house designers. now there are tons more design schools and most companies of any decent size have their own in house design teams.
but adobe was already the industry standard when they made that change. they had far less competition (Quark had already tanked themselves by then). GF is not an industry standard and is facing much stiffer competition, so…
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Oh rats. I was all excited for snapmarks back. But paywall. I’m not paying for extras. If I had snapmarks all along I would need them; but I guess they fall in luxury. I recognize that GF is gonna need people to subscribe to keep afloat; but I won’t be one of them. Bummer. If I had not lost the snapmark with my last dead machine, I would probably be pretty pissed too. But I haven’t had them for a couple years.
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Yep, looks like you are.
How about if they took the automatic height sensing and put it behind the paywall and you had to go back to measuring every piece of material every time?
Inconvenient? Sure. But you haven’t lost the ability to adjust focus, you just have to do it manually. Set focus wasn’t there originally so it’s not like they’d be taking away something you bought and really need.
Snapmarks are the same for the folks who have them and built up a workflow. Even if it’s just occasional use, all of a sudden they have to pay so their old projects work the way they used to. Can they adjust? Sure. But the company used them to make it a chargeable feature. That’s why people are upset. (Not to mention the fact that people react to the loss of something fundamentally differently than the gain of something.)
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Not apples to apples. Set focus was never a beta product and more importantly set focus reduces support issues by making cuts more reliable in a simple way, whereas snapmarks can only increase them — it’s a complicated process compared to autofocus.
As for set focus… this is just me but they could take the set focus button from me and I wouldn’t even blink. I don’t rely on the camera for alignment, all set focus does for me is barely speed up the time from pressing the button in the ui to pressing it on the machine.
They can’t make autofocus paywalled without making subscriptions mandatory or fundamentally changing the whole “we’re the easy laser cutter” angle that they’ve been pushing all this time, and there’s no indication of them ever intentionally going for a less simple experience.
That being said.. mandatory cheaper subscriptions sure do sound like a good idea… if only I’d posted about that like 20 times already 
Ps if you want a more direct comparison this is a better analogue to the “minimize margin(beta)” feature. Another longterm beta that there’s no guarantee about. I’m sure somewhere someone is relying on that and will be Very Upsettm if it ever changes.
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The response that I got is below. Much of it doesn’t make sense. The bold/Italic text is my highlight. A phone rep also INSISTED that Snapmarks is no longer available. Even when I told her that I see it referenced in Dan’s update and is referenced as a Premium Feature in the app itself. That further bugs me. It also implies that 1/4” alignment variance is good if it’s working “as expected”. This was/is never acceptable. Also says that the work on SnapMark facilitated the camera calibration tool. The data from beta users contributed to this and now we are cut out.
The stupid communication of this is almost a frustrating as them putting this behind a new paywall for users who contributed to its development.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your interest in Snapmark. Unfortunately, it is no longer available for additional customers to receive access. We announced that we’ve stopped work on Snapmark but more importantly, that the work on Snapmark enabled us to provide the lid camera calibration tool.
When your Glowforge is working as expected, prints should land on your material within 1/4in of where you place them in the app. If you’d like, you can use the Camera Recalibrator to see if further improvement is possible. It will only make changes if it can make your camera more accurate; otherwise, it will exit without any changes. It takes about half an hour.
If you still need more precise alignment than your unit achieved after running the Camera Recalibrator, some of our other Community Forum members have shared solutions that have worked for them. Here are two posts, in particular, that might be a good place to start:
Glowforge Interface - How to Align a Double-Sided Engrave
Placement of Designs in WebApp is off because of Distortion of Bed Image due to Fish Eye Lens
I hope the above information helps with the projects that you have in mind.
Thanks,
Ray N
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I did get a response, not sure how I missed it. Saw it only on a followup e-mail from them. Here’s what they said and when following with a phone call, the rep continually just referred to this e-mail and said it is not available even when I tried to tell her its in the app and Dan’s announcement.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your interest in Snapmark. Unfortunately, it is no longer available for additional customers to receive access. We announced that we’ve stopped work on Snapmark but more importantly, that the work on Snapmark enabled us to provide the lid camera calibration tool.
When your Glowforge is working as expected, prints should land on your material within 1/4in of where you place them in the app. If you’d like, you can use the Camera Recalibrator to see if further improvement is possible. It will only make changes if it can make your camera more accurate; otherwise, it will exit without any changes. It takes about half an hour.
If you still need more precise alignment than your unit achieved after running the Camera Recalibrator, some of our other Community Forum members have shared solutions that have worked for them. Here are two posts, in particular, that might be a good place to start:
Glowforge Interface - How to Align a Double-Sided Engrave
Placement of Designs in WebApp is off because of Distortion of Bed Image due to Fish Eye Lens
I hope the above information helps with the projects that you have in mind.
Thanks,
Ray N
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and that’s exactly what the answer has been for the last few years, so somebody is still using the macro to answer - probably under instruction.
The change of ownership just happened (or is still happening) so don’t lose hope. That we haven’t actually heard from Dan in this thread is a pretty good indication that he’s buried, because he is surprisingly involved in this forum even a decade later.
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Hi everyone. I saw the comments in the thread and I wanted to follow up to let you know that I’m checking on this with the teams to clarify the Snapmark feature and avoid any conflicting communications.
We’ll follow up in this thread, but for now, I wanted to send a quick message that this is being looked into and I appreciate your time posting areas of concern or questions.
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Yep. I got the same response. Glowforge’s left brain appears to have no idea what its right brain is doing. Really odd oversight that Glowforge employees aren’t aware of significant feature changes.
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Seeing a lot of used glowforges up for sale in my area. Making your remaining users feel badly about removed features is not gonna help a thing.
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Thank you @Brandon.B ,
Are you able to give us an idea on when we can hear back from you/GF on this issue? As someone who has been a Beta tester since 2018, I’ve set up a lot of my processes, projects, and jigs using Snapmarks (a feature I love by the way!), so to have it thrown behind a paywall all of a sudden, especially at this time of year when I’m making gifts for people for the holidays, just feels kind of icky…?
Anyway, I’ve been a big fan of GF for a very long time and really hope to get my projects going again soon. I appreciate you looking into this.
Austin
Edit: wondering if I can @dan here? Does anyone know if he sees these?
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Thanks for posting the update discussion thread. I have been a Glowforge Owner since 2018 when I bought my Glowforge Plus. After an initial DOA unit/return, I’m still using the same laser and it’s been fantastic. For the past 3-4 years or so I primarily use my Glowforge around the end-of-year holidays when I have some time off from my day job in Tech, which was keeping me very busy up until about 3 weeks ago. Let’s just say I’ve got some more time available now for the foreseeable future! I’m looking forward to some down time and doing projects.
As a long-time user, and former “regular” in the community at one point (having beta tested the Glowforge Compact Filter, and just generally passionate about GF and taking everything in) I was a bit surprised by the tone of the update. First, I was sorry to hear that Glowforge had to go through a restructuring. There is clearly a trend to move features to premium, though it is great to see Snapmarks making a comeback. I’m also glad there are some speed/performance improvements to the lasers.
Reading this update makes me concerned that GF is struggling. Similar to other folks chiming in, I think the subscription price is too high. As a hobbyist, and someone who uses my laser to make gifts and other personal trinkets, it is too hard for me to justify the $50 a month subscription price. I am surprised there isn’t any tiering of subscriptions. Could we get a “hobbyist” level for $5 a month (paid $60 up front)? Give me the current “Print” level access, plus access to features like Snapmark. I don’t need any of the image library, fonts, or unlimited storage or any proofgrade discounts. I’d sign up for this immediately if offered.
Another idea would be to allow users to get “Premium” for their first 25 cuts per month. After that, if they want to continue using premium features and get benefits, they have to ante up and get unlimited. Otherwise they get downgraded to the current “Print” subscription.
Maybe GF has already thought about this, but I wanted to throw these ideas out there.
And I know it has been said before… but now it’s maybe more important than ever. I would LOVE to see, and be willing to pay for (one time, or perhaps every time a new version is released) is software I can install and run locally to use my Glowforge w/o an internet connection. This could be another way for GF to make some revenue, and could also help assuage concerns of GF’s long term viability. Make the install process a heavier lift so that the folks who just want “easy mode” can continue using the subscription.
Thanks for reading, and I wish everyone happy holidays!
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