I have a few digital cutters myself and I’d much rather be able to use my GF as well. I’m still jealous of those of you with Snapmarks, but there’s not much I can do about it. I’d be willing to pay something right now, but I guess we’ll see how effective my work-arounds become over time!
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Bummer, never even got to try it.
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I suspect that given the interest in Snapmarks, we’ll see it again down the road. But for now, there is a lot of good for everyone with the improved calibration, so it was a good thing to focus on.
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Personally I thought she was nuts for saying something like that before the company suggested it. It encourages the company to go forward with subscription capabilities. I would STRONGLY discourage a subscription service until other promised capabilities are completed and delivered. I also, tend to believe advanced capabilities that help to sell machines are more profitable than a subscription model.
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I REALLY hate the new move to subscription-based stuff. I liked the days when customer loyalty was rewarded with free minor updates/improvements, and wasn’t unhappy about paying a one-time (reduced) license fee for major upgrades along the way, but anything that wants me to pay monthly forever just really turns me off. I’ve switched away from almost all the software I used to use that does that (looking at YOU, Adobe!). On stuff that I HAVE to use, and therefore am forced to pay the monthly fees, I do it, but I feel an underlying resentment at basically having to pay ransom every month / year that completely destroys any sense of loyalty, and am very likely to steer new customers toward one-time-fee options before they’re roped in (looking at YOU, stupid EMR software company!).
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I don’t do subscription based software.
I also avoid companies or products that choose to reward new customers over existing ones. I bought the first Apple iPhone (I’m an early adopter of a lot if tech). That was my only iPhone. When they came out with the next gen they provided the same pricing to the new buyers as the original ones. I asked at the store if there was a current customer discount being considered and was told “no, we don’t need to”. So I switched to Android. I but my phones straight from Google and don’t play the new customer preference game (& I don’t get it all garbaged up with whatever lame apps the carrier or manufacturer think makes their version special).
I’m in the software business so I understand the economics. What’s driving the move to subscription is the decline in creativity. To make money from licenses & upgrades your stuff has to offer compelling value for new features & functionality. That’s less and less the case with most mainstream software. With little innovation showing up in each new version, people sit on older versions longer.
So rather than fix the problem (develop new & useful stuff people will want and therefore pay for) companies are turning to subscription models so they can create a recurring revenue stream. New versions focus on fluff and scattershot me-too features so they’re getting more bloated with less value. But if we pay the subscription we’re going to continue the cycle.
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Personally, I think a subscription service of some kind would be an excellent way for Glowforge to develop and grow the company long term, (which benefits everyone). It offers increased functionality, but doesn’t force us to keep buying a new model to get it. It takes care of the early adopters by not cutting them out of new developments.
And it looks like Snapmarks are a good candidate for improved functionality that people might be interested in buying a subscription for.
But while they solicit our input, they make up their own minds about things. 
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I mostly agree with you except the not needing to buy a new machine. Right now there is only one Glowforge (with 3 variations) but what happens when they continue to develop the expanded functionality for the latest machine only? They’re incentivised to do that. This happens with software across the board.
For certain people these high level features are unneeded so it makes sense to offer them as a premium feature. I just hope it doesn’t cost too much. (and hey its a business expense for me 
)
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If anything, they would probably underprice it. 
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my snapmarks seem to have disappeared… before I had a full chance to use them. 
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Exactly. It’s a complete turn-off for me and I will do whatever I can to avoid it.
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That’s true, but not the whole picture. There’s also a drive toward more stable revenue, and the ability to predict what that revenue might be. Too many companies, in the past, would drive their budgets based on the burst of revenue that would come in with a new release, and then be scrambling to cover those budgets later in the version lifecycle. I still see this happen with companies using subscription models, but it–on paper–should be easier to manage.
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I do not like software subscriptions and do almost anything to avoid them. If a company wants recurring revenue from me, they can make consumables that are a good value compared to what I can find elsewhere.
Now if I had a business to run, and the thing the subscription gave me was critical to my business… maybe I’d subscribe if it was less hassle than switching equipment.
But that is not my use case. I am a hobbyist and so I go where my whims take me. I haven’t used my Snapmark feature in months. Next month, it might be all I do. When you flit around like that, paying for a feature you’re not using feels bad, man.
I don’t expect to get every future innovation for free, but I also don’t expect to be charged for all of them, too. The company has to find the right balance.
If I have to pay, one-time unlocks are much more palatable to me. But man, how would you even price something like that? Would I pay $250 for Snapmarks? Hell no. $100? Probably not. $50? Delay until needed to complete a specific valuable project. $25? Shut up and take my money.
But in that scenario I also would want my unlocks to apply to future hardware. If the cost of upgrading to a new Glowforge had to include re-purchasing features I depended on, that would feel bad, because I feel like the unlocks are part of my account.
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I get this. My company sells on an ARR oriented model too. But it’s pretty customized mission critical software and smoothing the millions of dollars it can cost is good for the customer as well as our revenue predictability.
But most general market software has lack of predictability for revenue because their updates don’t offer perceived value to the customer. If you spent a lot of time & effort building a buttload of new features and not many of your clients want to pay to upgrade & get those, then I’d argue those were the wrong things to focus development resources on and you’d better improve your voice-of-customer operation.
Most users of any general market software application don’t know about or use a huge portion of the feature set (some estimates as high as 60-70% of the features in fact). We see that here all the time with the “I do this…” that is followed by 10 people going “I didn’t know you could do that…”
Where is Illustrator’s machine learning modified user experience that guesses at what you’re trying to do and then either pops a suggestion (a la type-ahead in texting) or opens up new menu options and a wizard to walk you through it the first couple of times? I’m pretty sure they’d have people paying for that upgrade even from experienced die-hard users.
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Snapmarks work very well for what I use them for. I have several jigs made with snapmarks on them, so when I go to cut a piece the snapmark will align the cut with the material even if the jig moves around on the bed a little bit.
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I would much rather buy a new piece of desktop software (offline usage) vs paying a subscription to use the hardware I already own. GlowForge is not a SaaS company, they are a hardware company with some of the worst vendor lock-in I’ve ever seen. The only thing a subscription service does is make them more attractive for investment at the cost of us the users. I would also be worried about their finances if they switch to a subscription model, either they are getting low on cash flow or they are just greedy and want all our money.
IMHO if they would just open source their software as they originally promised, everything would be great. We’d we would never have to worry about not getting the features we want as there are many amazing software engineers right in this forum that I know would be willing to help make this product better.
An amazing first step would be to open their release their spec for their motions files so that others could build interfaces to allow people to work offline.
This is one of the problems with being a backer, you’re promised the world and delivered a potato. Luckily potatoes are pretty alright. 
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This gave me quite the chuckle. I think we got better than a potato, but I do love potatoes!
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I have to say, Id choose snapmarks over the calibration tool/topical placement any day. Im so glad they are leaving it around. It makes doing repeat jobs SO much easier
However, I think the calibration tool was a must have for the glowforge. The majority of users will get much more use out of the calibration tool, and its a lot more user friendly than snapmarks
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“Leaving it around” for the people that got it, that is.
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