Waking up to the NEW TRIAL on my platform

Everything Else
#1

I never get use to the Control glow forge has over my work load . Its shocking most of the time.

It means a meeting has to be set up at work for me to explain the changes .
For me these changes our childish ones , Text , lines , shapes our not going to get my money and knowing every update from now on is going to have to be something we pay for is sad to me.

Dont get me wrong I am ok with paying some extra , but not for some additions that should have been there all along.

By the way seems like the new Update changed the way the home board works, anyone else notice that ?

Glowforge lets do better.

1 Like
#2

I agree with you that sometimes new changes in the middle of workflow can be upsetting. One way to help alleviate the shock factor is to set the forum software to send you notifications from Announcements.

Speaking of Announcements, have you had a moment to read through the April Update? It will give you the best information to present at your meeting, with new and helpful updates.

For example, fact: Glowforge Print (what is considered the basic GFUI) will continue getting free updates for life.

The beta trial is an interesting option adding design software right inside the GFUI, which your company may not ever need or use. The two useful actions I can see right off is to add a simple cut shape or outline.

For making puzzles, I can’t imagine the design-in-app would ever be useful to me, but it will be nice to mess around with it for fun.

Over all, even though change that I don’t choose is hard to adapt to, I’m still excited that Glowforge as a company keeps growing, adapting, and pushing forward new technology. But I definitely agree, sometimes it would be nice to get to choose when an update gets applied!

10 Likes
#3

I also felt the need to come to the forum to express my frustration over the fact that Glowforge somehow felt it was ok to actually charge for updates to software that should always be free. I didn’t spend $7500 (CAD) so I can spend more on the software. The very thought of this is ludicrous, to be completely blunt. This is quite literally a deal breaker for me, and if I went back in time to when I was shopping for a laser cutter, this would have absolutely swayed my decision toward another machine. I feel very strongly about this. The software was already lacking to begin with, providing VERY limited functionality. All of a sudden I’ve become aware that the Glowforge team has been focusing their efforts not on how to make the software better for their customers, but how to monetize it and make even more money. It might have been warranted if the company was struggling financially and had to find ways to sustain itself, but I’m certain this is not the case. The Glowforge business model is not the first of its kind (Inventables comes to mind), and I haven’t heard of others doing this. The Glowforge software should absolutely be free for life, along with all its updates! I know one of the goals of this free ‘beta’ is to gauge community response and push-back (if any). Well, this is my response, and I feel very strongly about it and hope others will follow suit.
I recently launched a second new business, and although this is my first laser cutter, it was certainly not going to be my last, so I’ll be perfectly clear: If Glowforge decides to proceed with this decision, I will absolutely guarantee that this will be my last Glowforge purchase.
I hope this message reaches the Glowforge team. Thank you and please stay safe.

EDIT: Whoa whoa, I just used the app again for a few minutes, and I had to come back and add this…
Are you being serious right now? You want to charge me to be able to flip an image vertically and horizontally? You consider this to be a premium feature? I am absolutely speechless.
While I’m here… you want me to pay so I can write text, draw a line, a square and a circle?

I have to say, I don’t feel good at all about the future of this app, because now I know the developers will be hard at work releasing updates to the paid members and throw us ‘free’ users the crumbs once in a while. I certainly would not pay a subscription to use the so-called premium features, even if just to prove a point. I sincerely hope this does not come to fruition.

2 Likes
#4

I was surprised to see it too, but I haven’t owned my Glowforge as long as others have. Now I only see a white screen and I’ve only been able to cut 1 item in 2 days. It’s frustrating and now I have to delay a project until I figure this out.

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#5

Posting here won’t accomplish much. They don’t monitor the general forums. Problems and support, or you can reply in the announcement discussion thread.

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#6

Thank you, I’ll do that.

#7

The way that I understand it, GF is not charging for updates. They are potentially charging for new functionality that is not part of the core laser functionality that was promised with the device.

The GF website is essentially the equivalent of a fancy print driver that other lasers would require. Those drivers don’t have a slew of functionality either. They are geared toward loading a job, and driving the laser to perform the job.

Design functions were never part of the features that we were promised. Adobe and other companies spend many millions of dollars to design these types of features. You’re not limited to using the GF design functions, if you have other software, but it seems reasonable to me that GF would charge for these features that are not core to the laser functionality, and replace other software that might be required. Having said that, I use other design software, so I will most likely not be paying GF for this functionality.

14 Likes
#8

Not everything that the company does pleases me but I believe you misunderstand the update. Nothing that is part of the regular user software or cloud processing is part of the subscription service. All of the current S/W is free for life. Also there are and will continue to be improvements to the existing capabilities for free. The subscription service includes extra features that weren’t part of the original specification or capabilities. Nothing changes if you choose not to pay for the subscription service. You won’t get some of the fancy new tools but so what?

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#9

I understand your initial shock but I think you might have misread both the promised functionality from when you purchased your machine and the meat of this statement regarding the latest update.

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#10

This. The software you had yesterday is what you will have - updates included - forever.

The subscription will simply allow people who don’t know how to use design applications to create simple prints with graphics and text right there in the workspace.

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#12

Some of those features like the flipping and scaling / positioning will be free forever. I get your confusion, It was not overly clear in the release where the line is drawn between free and pay to play.

#13

I would personally prefer that they continue with improvements to the core device functionality, rather than design functions that can easily be obtained elsewhere. Either way, while I have my own frustrations with GF, they have always been receptive to feedback; although, speed to resolution doesn’t meet everyone’s desires.

3 Likes
#14

Actually there was no confusion. The flip horizontally/vertically feature was never there. They just added it, and it’s clearly stated within the interface that it will be a premium feature. I’m not referring to scaling, nor manually flipping images by dragging. I’m referring to a ‘flip’ button that appears on the far right of the screen when you select an image. It’s used to flip images with 1 click, and has the ‘Trial’ symbol next to it.
However, I just went back to the app and the interface changed again. All that premium/beta/trial stuff is gone and the interface went back to the way it was before, with the addition of a couple new drawing buttons at the top.
Perhaps they took my feedback seriously, lol :laughing:

EDIT: Well crap, whatever they did to the app, they screwed everything up and created a slew of new bugs, just as I predicted. All the dozens of designs I had with their saved settings were reverted to Power of 1. Thank you for proving my point, Glowforge :angry:. And the little engrave/cut/score operations that display on the left are sometimes showing up completely black now.
Glowforge… put… the keyboard… down… and step away… from the computer!

#15

There’s a reason CAD programs cost $7500. Why would you expect Glowforge to provide one for free? Also, if I had a $7500 CAD program I wouldn’t CARE about interface CAD functionality. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like
#16

Must? wow that is pretty strong language. Good luck with that.

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#17

They just added some new free things along with the stuff they will let you try and if you like, pay for.

In other words, they are adding cheese to your lifetime supply of hamburgers at no extra cost. However, if you also want fries with that, they are free right now but will cost you in the future. You get to decide if you like fries enough to pay for the cost of them at that point. No one will force you to eat the fries if you do not like them. You may be reminded that others are enjoying fries by the smell of them in the room but none will appear on your plate unless you pay for them.

SO, what you are seeing is a blend of free stuff and stuff you will need to pay for. The new flipper and the new position/ scale elements intended to be free (as far as I can tell) and will not require payment. The other stuff: text, outlines, shapes, graphics, are the current meat of features that will cost some day. I am on the fence about those, much depends on the cost and how much I find myself using them. Thus far, they are handy but not vital. So i am keeping an open mind. As far as your other UI issues, I have not seen that here. It sucks if that happened at your end.

6 Likes
#18

I dont see anyone would be interested typing text or do styling work on the GF interface.
What is indeed 'handy ’ is the box and rectangle draw function. But i will not pay for this funstionality alone. It should be in in the first place.

#19

BTW that big box with positioning info… please move it off the gridd. Who came up with that idea.

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#20

I think CAD is referring to canadian dollars in their statement.

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#21

Dude, hire smarter employees.

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