Public Notice regarding devices being disabled if new terms of purchase and service are not agreed to

Everything Else
29

Sorry Roy, that section was modified in later versions of the Terms.
(Look at the section in the 2-20-2018 version that you linked. By using the service since then, you agreed to those modifications.)

And even though seven days notice was no longer required by the TOS, if you look at the date of modification on the current Terms of Service, you will see that it has been public for more than 7 days for us to read before they required our signatures on the new Agreements. (Since mid September.)

Want to know why I am fairly sure you’re going to lose this argument?

Because when you first clicked your “I Agree” button, you agreed to this:

TOS
TOS672×743 486 KB

or this:

2-20-2018
2-20-2018790×632 378 KB

or this:

11-22-2016
11-22-2016858×723 405 KB

They all say the same thing, they just get wordier as time goes on. I guarantee whichever version you signed, you agreed to exactly that.

All you are doing is making trouble for Glowforge, and possibly for yourself, if you actually sent that opt-out to them. You can opt-out from binding arbitration, but you will not be able to use the service unless you agree to the terms as they have them laid out.

Are you attempting to extort a change from Glowforge through the threat of negative publicity? Be very careful with that tactic. It can backfire on you with criminal prosecution if you actually have enough followers to be a threat.

What I would suggest you do (and I don’t care one way or the other whether you do it or not, this is just a recommendation I would give anyone in the same situation)…

Read the current Terms of Service and decide whether you are going to agree to it as it is, or not. Have a lawyer look it over for you if you don’t understand it. Because you’re not entering into an individual contract with Glowforge, they have a standard agreement for the 30,000 or so people who own these things. And in order to use the software, you have to agree to their Terms.

You have the choice to not agree to the Terms. If you do not agree, sell your machine to someone who doesn’t have a problem with it. There are other machines that don’t use cloud processing, and you can use one of those without signing agreements of any kind. That might be a better fit for you, since the cloud aspect of this seems to be particularly bothersome to you.

You’re asking them to change something that works very well for them, just to accommodate your fears of things that “might come to pass” in the future. You’re not basing your decisions now on what is actually going on, you’re basing them on something that you have imagined “might” happen one day.

Today is enough to deal with. We sure as hell don’t need to borrow future trouble right now.

11 Likes
30

I myself don’t waste energy worrying about things like this. If it ever happens then I’ll deal with it. In the mean time enjoy what you have.

5 Likes
31

I bought mine because two places I taught at use them, and it was easier to get my own than go there to dink around with it. I don’t even know if I realized it was cloud-only when I got it–even its logs are cloud-only, which means you don’t troubleshoot if they’re not open, which means you have a brick until they can diagnose and advise.

Cloud-based hardware is a dead end, because clouds disappear. Cloud-based companies that don’t provide mechanisms to bypass the cloud are a dead-end, because clouds go away and network connectivity is unreliable.

If GF goes away, and they don’t do the right thing and open up their machines, we’re all stuck w/ $3-4k bricks (and some people waited a couple of years for those bricks). It’s just not cool.

32

to be fair, that’s not GF’s fault. it’s been debated ad nauseum here and elsewhere across the internet for 5 years now. it’s been a cloud-based machine since first announcement in october 2015 and that hasn’t and isn’t likely to change any time soon. complaining about it won’t make it not be the case.

the logs are also on your machine. you may not be able to figure out what’s going on in them, but in the troubleshooting instructions, you actually create a zip file of your logs to send to them.

4 Likes
33

Correct, definitely not GF’s fault I didn’t know (or didn’t remember) it was cloud-only–no argument there.

It was my understanding the logs didn’t used to be available, but I could have misunderstood what they told me; I was pretty irate at the time.

34

it’s likely they have different information at their end they can see from server logs. but your machine does maintain logs at it’s end as well.

thought there was a link somewhere in the support part of glowforge.com, but i can’t remember where. but here’s a link to a support thread where one of the support team explains how to download your local logs to a zip file.

1 Like
35

They’re open. Glowforge released the firmware well over a year ago. Might be closer to two. (So long ago I’ve forgotten when it actually was released.) :smile:

But in any case, you can find the link to it in the Latest Improvements announcements that they post on the Dashboard periodically. That’s where it was first announced.

And a group of people have been tinkering with it since then. (No telling what they are making it do by now… It’s called Openglow.)

2 Likes
36

meh, it’s vaguely open. i think that was an attempt to mollify some vocal folks, but i don’t think it was open enough to actually be able to write code to work the GF w/o the cloud (at least that was the reaction of the people who looked over the code at the time, i am not a programmer).

2 Likes
37

Me either. :woman_shrugging:

38

When programs used in office cubicles went to the server based modeling, they mouthed the same complaints, but it has grown, not disappeared. The IT people loved it, because prior to that they had to go to each machine and install program upgrades. Now they do not even have to maintain expensive server rooms on site for access, just a robust Wifi .

Same argument was made when games stopped being stand alone. So many console adaptions and gaming companies have come and gone, yet cloud gaming thrives and becomes more adaptive. Almost to the point that if you do not have Internet access, you are not gaming (and not just with the hardware consoles, but computers as well).
I have not a clue where you live that network connectivity is unreliable, but if true, i would suggest finding a better provider, because it is much more reliable today than ever before, with all the providers scrambling to be the biggest, fastest, best one.

Regardless. Using the glowforge tools allows access to the glowforge without using an expensive computer. If you have ever used a 3D printer, you can appreciate how much horsepower is needed to do the necessary pathing on large or complex builds. Yet you can send a design to the GF in minutes with anything that can access the UI.
That is not a small thing, and is the real power behind using the cloud for this.

No matter. We all knew this was cloud based going in, or at least it should have been obvious.

5 Likes
39

I want a machine that works and does what GF promised. There are many things that I like about the Glowforge. I don’t want or not want a cloud service. It’s an implementation detail.

Maybe so. Unlike you, I don’t have every copy of the agreement. If Glowforge claims that new versions of the agreement are automatically agreed to by their customers when they are posted (an audacious claim!), then it would apply if any version prior to the latest included that clause. As to whether they actually gave notice, it would be up to a court to decide if updating a web page that existing customers never visit, by itself, constitutes “notice.”

As I said earlier, if it comes to it, it will ultimately be decided by a court, not by anyone commenting here (hopefully, it won’t come to it). You posted multiple versions of the agreement. The Wayback Machine has one with a February 2018 date that I linked to. As far as I know, I didn’t agree to any of those versions. February 2018 was almost 3 months after I got my machine; your earliest 2016 agreement is a full year after I paid for my machine and a year before I received it.

Absolutely not. I’m just stating why I’m not worried that they will intentionally brick my machine.

I’ll assume you’re not trying to be condescending. I understand the agreement and I’m well aware that this agreement is for all of their customers. I’m not concerned just for myself.

I don’t care about their software. I want to continue to use the hardware I purchased.

This is unreasonable.

I have no problem with the fact that they made the implementation decision to use a cloud service. As a software development manager, architect, and developer with decades of experience, I am well aware of the pros and cons, As a user, I don’t care one way or another about their decision to use a cloud service (except the frustration we all have when it goes down). I want to continue to use the hardware I purchased.

Nope. I just don’t want to set the precedent that they can make any arbitrary changes without warning or notice, and force all of us to agree without recourse. I’m bringing it up now because this is the first time since I received my Glowforge that I was blocked from using it because they insisted I agree to a new version of the terms of service.

40

Please take this up with the Glowforge lawyers.

41

This is the most telling hole in your entire illogical, overwrought diatribe. ANY piece of hardware with a software component has some kind of TOS you agree to to be able to use it, doesn’t matter whether it’s cloud or local based.

5 Likes
42

I think of the development of the cloud model in the last five years since Glowforge made its commitment. I am not well-versed at how law and practice shakes out regarding hardware and the software and services that are required to use that hardware. Tech is no longer just a hammer that doesn’t need an operating system. How a company provides a technology (that means they are providing not only a hardware device but also a service to use that hardware).

I do recall the topic that @rpegg mentioned above and the good discussion we got into at that time. I understood that I had little agency in this enterprise and had to rely on the good faith of Glowforge to make it right. And that is why I stuck with this forum and read every post for over three years because I knew that they had all the cards and I had to rely on them.

I think it is reasonable that you have posted your disagreement with the change in TOS. But I really am having a hard time understanding how you didn’t see this coming and just would have to accept it.

Even the whole thing about posting the firmware has been demonstrated as being something that won’t really help anyone.

I do think that there are a lot of folks who might be a bit naïve about Glowforge and not understand just how precarious a situation this is. We had many long discussions about the initial advertising and how it sold a great product, but we are still waiting on some things to roll out.

And if they get sold, I just can’t see another company keeping the same ecosystem at all. I’m pretty pessimistic about that. I would say the value of the company is in the intellectual property at the moment and not at the revenue stream. That’s just a guess and I am pulling for them.

2 Likes
43

Thanks Roy for bringing this to everyone attention:

We all signed an agreement with Glowforge where we agreed to allow them to put a rope around our neck and to stand at the Podium.

I for one have felt the rope getting tighter around my neck as we start to loose more hours do to downtime on there severs between updates and the severs going down.

I suspect that in the very near future there is going to be a mandatory monthly fee to use our glow-forge on a subscription basis.

All of us have to take responsibility for the fact that we signed complete control over to Glow Forge and therefore anything they wan to do , legally they can and will do to us.

I am curious as to how much Glow Forge will ask us to pay a month to be able to use our Glowforge on a subscription model which i am thinking will be $39.95 for starters .

Its coming and we cant stop it from happening, some will drop out , others will sue but most of us will maintain as they got that rope around our neck and there is no where else to go…

44

Happy cakeday @coalakida.

While subscriptions to additional features is coming, charging for basic use of the Glowforge would be totally against everything that has been promised by Glowforge thus far. Yes, they could do this, especially if another company buys them out, but it is not coming and I don’t see it happening.

What makes you think that in the very near future they are going to charge a mandatory fee to use the Glowforge? Nothing I have read on this forum gives me any indication that this is coming.

3 Likes
45

That is exactly what Roy was attempting to say but in not in so few words.
When it becomes objectionable.

 If you look at some of the bigger companies such as ADOBE you can see how little by little they started to changer there policy until CS6 was no longer even supported on any machine forcing everyone to Subscribe.

Many of us Paid $3500.00 for the Life Time Suite however there was a special addendum to the Adobe Software policy update that they called End of Life Contract and they got everyone really good. In the end we all had to pay for the Subscription as our Software was ended.

I suspect that is where Glow Forge is heading as we continue forward as they continue to follow Trend.

46

Oh my goodness… a lot of people beating up on poor Roy here. Not necessary. He brings up a perfectly valid point and a great question. Many agreements don’t change.

Anyway… this just in from Glowforge HQ… :wink:

47

And many do.

No, he factually does not. This spurious and verbose thought experiment is entirely predicated upon his own self admitted lapses in memory and record keeping ability.

3 Likes
48

Elka,

The fact that he’s incorrect in his belief that Glowforge can not change the terms of service does not mean his point is invalid. It also shouldn’t invite many of the comments that he received.

I think that if Glowforge announced tomorrow they would be shutting down in 30 days, or even just degrading their service considerably, there would be a lot of upset people.

I recently had this happen to me with Automatic.com. For those who don’t know, Automatic.com was a great deal. For around $120 you received a device that plugged into the OBD-II port of your vehicle. It tracked GPS, milage, trips, read vehicle error codes, etc.

Like many other companies in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted their business. They discontinued the service on May 28, 2020.

This is NOT much different than the Glowforge model.

Everyone paid for a device… sort of thinking the device was the product… when in fact the REAL product was the cloud/software platform.

Automatic did offer a very brief period of time for people to “jump through some hoops” and request partial refunds but the end result was a lot of unhappy and abandoned customers.

It always pays to read the fine print… always. I think Jules did a fantastic job of talking it all out so I won’t bother to rehash that.

I’m simply saying that I think Roy brought up a perfectly valid point… even though he agreed (in the original TOS) to be subjected to an essentially never-ending series of “TOS changes”.

I think the vast majority of Glowforge owners never even bothered to read the click-through agreement and many assume the Glowforge IS the product.

Roy’s device NEVER should have been “bricked”. He should have been given notice (per the TOS) and at the very least he should have been given an option to flash his firmware and make his Glowforge unit work independent of the cloud. Back in 2015 that was something Glowforge said they would do. To date, I have not seen that. (I know there is an “Openforge” project or something like that but I don’t believe that’s the official Glowforge firmware offering. - Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.)

-Novak

1 Like