Glowforge release

[Art Mann]

Yes! Buying a Glowforge laser is like buying an expensive TV set that only streams Netflix. You might start out liking what they advertise. If the service degrades or stops offering anything you want to watch, the only alternative is to throw the TV away and buy a new one. Same thing with the Glowforge laser.

None of those take thousands of dollars up-front for hardware to access their service either. There really is a difference between a content-only service and one that is strictly in support of, and required by, a multi-$K hardware device. Even for Apple (AFAIK), their devices will still work if they cancel/change their online services or you opt out of them. (I could be wrong about that, but it's not like I really need another reason to dislike Apple.)

[Matt McCoy]

You a state registered contract lawyer then Matt with 30 years experience to arrive at that conclusion?

I'm astounded that you are convinced you are right and to a man pretty much everybody else who has posted in this topic is wrong, up to and including on the terms of contract law when you aren't a lawyer.

Let's take one more look:

"The Service may include additional, premium features that include automatically recurring payments for periodic charges (“Subscription Service”), for example, monthly delivery of designs.

Note the bold and underlined parts. There is mention of increasing or decreasing the fee, but absolutely no word about increasing/decreasing services. There is even an example (monthly delivery of designs). Here's the link if you want to take a gander: https://glowforge.com/terms

Until I go to another provider who will happily supply me with a sim card that will allow use of them as phones.Why? because I have a choice of other providers...something GF owners do not

You're wandering off into the woods. At one time, the iPhone was exclusive to AT&T. You also had to commit to a 2-year contract and purchase their own insurance/service contract. Now, there are no other service options for the GF, so it's not even really relevant whether you can switch phone carriers (which is an established industry that has been around a long time.) A device, like the Amazon Echo, would be more similar.

They also said they would offer a laser with Camera support for alignment, I guess it depends how you define "alignment"

We've already been over this. I'm just passing along what they have publicly promised. It's fine if you think they are lying and have noted that.

So you are satisfied with US consumers having less rights on something they buy than everybody else then?

So, again, this wasn't the discussion. U.S. consumers have quite a bit of leverage and protections, but, respectfully, that's another discussion for somewhere else.

[Dave Sheldrake]

You're wandering off into the woods. At one time, the iPhone was exclusive to AT&T. You also had to commit to a 2-year contract and purchase their own insurance/service contract. Now, there are no other service options for the GF, so it's not even really relevant whether you can switch phone carriers (which is an established industry that has been around a long time.) A device, like the Amazon Echo, would be more similar.

Except laser cutters are NOT exclusive to GF, the Iphone as it happens was available on 4 providers on it's release date over here. The Amazon echo isn't a great comparison as Amazon is just a touch bigger than Glowforge.

On the T&C, it is quite clear they can change them as they see fit, if one of those changes is to introduce a subscription based service then the point is, users have to sign up or have a brick to play with.

[Matt McCoy]

Except laser cutters are NOT exclusive to GF, the Iphone as it happens was available on 4 providers on it's release date over here. The Amazon echo isn't a great comparison as Amazon is just a touch bigger than Glowforge.

This laser cutter is exclusive to GF. You invalidate the Echo comparison, because Amazon is a "touch bigger" than GF, but are OK with your Apple iPhone analogy?

On the T&C, it is quite clear they can change them as they see fit, if one of those changes is to introduce a subscription based service then the point is, users have to sign up or have a brick to play with.

Again, like every other company in the world with TOS. If you want to add another prediction that GF is so nefarious, that they want to trick you, then let's add that to the heap of ill-fated GF prognostications. I'm not saying they won't, but it's not likely.

[Bill George]

TOS can be changed at any time. Those of us with ATT-Direct TV know that, now my bill for just one HD Receiver to feed one set is $103 per month. They just raised my rate $6 and IF I do not agree with the new TOS I can disconnect. No so with the GF, you disconnect and now you have a $3000 paper weight. BTW I do not have a Premium package.

BTW Matt I admire your tenacity on this, even as more experienced users and even lawyers have chimed in you have not been swayed in your opinion of Glow Forge.

[Lee DeRaud]

I'm sure you won't be offended if I take more notice of the $1,000 an hour lawyer

All EULAs can be summed up in seven words: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
Or more succinctly, "Give up."

Scares me a bit that one has to pay $1K/hour to parse that.

[Matt McCoy]

TOS can be changed at any time. Those of us with ATT-Direct TV know that, now my bill for just one HD Receiver to feed one set is $103 per month. They just raised my rate $6 and IF I do not agree with the new TOS I can disconnect. No so with the GF, you disconnect and now you have a $3000 paper weight. BTW I do not have a Premium package.

BTW Matt I admire your tenacity on this, even as more experienced users and even lawyers have chimed in you have not been swayed in your opinion of Glow Forge.

Thanks Bill. I've said this before, but you probably won't find much opinion from me on the GF, other than it's nice to see the attempt and I hope they are successful. I don't make predictions or claims. On the contrary, I tend to ask questions or call folks out on their statements, in hopes of creating a decent conversation. I try to be reasonable and unbiased. However, the list of dramatic and nefarious predictions that turn out incorrect continues to grow. The cycle is: someone posts a negative opinion or anecdote as a fact. If it doesn't hold water, I will usually say so and try to provide why. Or, the GF will just pass a notable milestone and negate the conspiracy theories altogether. The conversation then turns to me (shill, fan boy, rube, etc.) and some tend to double-down on what they want to believe, instead of reality. Rinse, and repeat.

I have posted pros and cons about the GF, and think it's unlikely the nay sayers here can say the same.

What started this latest debate was the posting of the evil GF TOS that will steal your children and tip the earth off its axis. The examples of other companies changing their TOS confirms what I've said all along -- it's how the world works and GF is just following the norm. Paul was kind enough to pass along that Epilog, although not required to honor their limited warranty beyond the original purchaser, has done so. It's possible other manufacturers would do the same, including GF.

Offering "expert" opinion from lawyers and laser regulators, that are always just popping in with enough time to give a hot take on the GF, is just anecdote. One can read the TOS themselves and as I have already said, lawyers can be wrong and some have even lost cases before.

[Bert McMahan]

May I make an observation? It seems to me that you guys are arguing- but I'm not really sure about what, exactly.

There are a lot of points being thrown around in this thread, but I'll use the most recent one since it's right here; not picking on anyone in particular. Just using the TOS discussion.

There have been several pages of posts with Matt and Dave discussing the TOS/subscription service issue, but it seems like you guys are arguing over different things. From what I've read, this is what it sounds like to me:

-Dave is of the opinion that GF may, at any time, decide to begin charging for access to their cloud software.
-Matt is of the opinion that GF's current terms and conditions don't say that they may do that.
-Dave has replied that they may change their T&C's at any time, so at some point in the future they may decide to require a subscription service.

It seems to me you're both right- the *current* T&C's don't say they're considering charging for their service, but they MAY change their T&C's in the future. They have also claimed they will never do that. Did I summarize everyone's points correctly? I don't want to speak for anyone, so I apologize if I've misunderstood your statements.

It seems that there are multiple different arguments happening here:

1- Whether or not GF may implement a subscription requirement
2- Whether or not you believe GF's statements (including that they'll release their firmware and that they won't charge for access)
3- Whether or not it's acceptable for a company to have a cloud-only laser cutter
4- Whether or not it's acceptable for ANY company to have a cloud-only device
5- What the most applicable technological analogy is

and perhaps a few more.

Let me ask what is the point of figuring out the most apt analogy? There are many devices and services that function either wholly online, wholly offline, or a mixture. I think we could all avoid some arguments if we could try to boil our discussions down to a summarizing statement, and for all of us to try to separate factual information from conjecture or opinions. Conjecture and opinions have their place, absolutely, but they're different from published facts.

As my final $0.02, let me point out that a lot of you are offering conjectures, then when Matt responds with factual information, you accuse him of "defending the Glowforge". Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but no one is entitled to claim something factually incorrect.

If I was to say that the Glowforge optics were made out of hand-polished acrylic, someone here would correct me. That wouldn't mean they're defending the Glowforge, they were merely making a factual correction.
If I was to say that the Glowforge machine was a great tool at a great price, well that's an opinion, and is worthy of debate either way. Debate opinions all day long, but don't use false facts to back them up.

[Matt McCoy]

All EULAs can be summed up in seven words: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
Or more succinctly, "Give up."

Scares me a bit that one has to pay $1K/hour to parse that.

Isn't that the truth. Commercial leases, too.

[Scott Shepherd]

As my final $0.02, let me point out that a lot of you are offering conjectures, then when Matt responds with factual information, you accuse him of "defending the Glowforge". Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but no one is entitled to claim something factually incorrect.

That would be true if we were sitting in a vacuum making things up. However, we're not. We're posting ACTUAL users experiences. Some times even ACTUAL users photos of problems. We aren't, as non GF owners, sitting here making things up, we're actually discussing that's ACTUALLY happening as REPORTED BY THEIR ACTUAL OWNERS. However, every time we post issues people are having, we're word and sentenced parsed to death, telling us it's not true and the vast majority of owners are doing fantastic. How would anyone know if the "vast amount of owners" are doing fantastic? Is there a site somewhere that shows the percentage of happy vs. unhappy owners? No? Then how would one know?

Someone posting an actual case from their support section is then shown an example of something someone made successfully, like that negates the person (or people in this case) that posted their case on line. There are probably more than 100 posts on their support site for calibration and things being off. However, if you mention that, then we're told that there are a LOT more people who don't have the problem, therefore, what we have said cannot be true and we need to stop saying it because it's just untrue.

That's offensive to a lot of people that are actually having real issues. Keep in mind, their support system consists or two contact methods, email or post it on the forum. You might see 10 posts for a problem on the forum, but that doesn't mean it's only 10 people with that issue. It only means 10 people posted it instead of emailing. In reality, it means there are no less than 10 issues with it. Yet that's all dismissed in the name of being "non-biased". Give me a break.

A lot of people on this thread of being extremely objective and factual. I stand by my predictions. I said they'll grow through the pain, sell it for a lot of money. I still stand by that.

If you want to talk about actual facts, we can always go back to the advertised travel of the machine which, last time I checked, still isn't what was advertised. I suspect I'll get a sentence parsed out to tell me that they are working on that and it'll be corrected in the future. I didn't say it wouldn't work in the future, I said it doesn't work now. That's a fact, not a biased opinion.

[Bert McMahan]

That would be true if we were sitting in a vacuum making things up. However, we're not. We're posting ACTUAL users experiences. Some times even ACTUAL users photos of problems. We aren't, as non GF owners, sitting here making things up, we're actually discussing that's ACTUALLY happening as REPORTED BY THEIR ACTUAL OWNERS.

I agree that there are real, actual problems people are having. I also agree it's important to discuss, and I also agree that it's critical to point out these flaws. The GF has some severe issues. I'm not defending them in the least. I'm merely stating that there is a LOT of hyperbole in this thread.

However, every time we post issues people are having, we're word and sentenced parsed to death, telling us it's not true and the vast majority of owners are doing fantastic.

I haven't seen Matt say that none of these issues are true. There are a lot of posts with people making mistakes, and a lot of posts with people making projects successfully. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the internet, I can't tell if you mean *literally* every one of your posts is called out as being untrue, or if you're being hyperbolic to make a point. This isn't an issue with the way you post, just saying that it can be read different ways.

How would anyone know if the "vast amount of owners" are doing fantastic? Is there a site somewhere that shows the percentage of happy vs. unhappy owners? No? Then how would one know?
Someone posting an actual case from their support section is then shown an example of something someone made successfully, like that negates the person (or people in this case) that posted their case on line. There are probably more than 100 posts on their support site for calibration and things being off. However, if you mention that, then we're told that there are a LOT more people who don't have the problem, therefore, what we have said cannot be true and we need to stop saying it because it's just untrue.

Agreed that there are MANY posts showing that people have calibration issues, but there are also many posts of people who *don't* have calibration issues. Again, we run into the issue of generalizing. One person mentions calibration issues, and in that same post they imply that literally everyone has the issue. Do they mean *literally* every GF has that issue? I don't know- I'm not in their head, and text on the internet doesn't convey emotion the same way speech does. When someone says "Glowforges can't even cut accurately!" that statement, taken at face value, implies that NONE of them work correctly. Matt's points (to me, at least- again I could be misunderstanding him) seem to take issue with that statement. He clarifies it as "Some machines DO cut accurately, here are examples." Which is a factual statement. The statement "All glowforges cannot cut anything accurately" is absolutely false, as it claims an incorrect fact (as evidenced by Matt's posts- at least one or more machine can cut things accurately, sometimes). The statement "Too many glowforges have accuracy issues to be acceptable as a product" is an opinion that can be debated back and forth (and is an opinion I agree with, but still it's an opinion nonetheless).

Perhaps I'm being too pedantic on the issue, but you yourself admit that there's no way to know if there are more people WITH problems than people WITHOUT problems.

That's offensive to a lot of people that are actually having real issues. Keep in mind, their support system consists or two contact methods, email or post it on the forum. You might see 10 posts for a problem on the forum, but that doesn't mean it's only 10 people with that issue. It only means 10 people posted it instead of emailing. In reality, it means there are no less than 10 issues with it. Yet that's all dismissed in the name of being "non-biased". Give me a break.

You're both using forum posts; most people use the posts to show bad things, Matt shows completed projects. It's just as offensive to ignore one group as it is the other. Matt isn't dismissing the issues, he's dismissing those people who use a few issues to describe the entire machine.

I stand by my predictions. I said they'll grow through the pain, sell it for a lot of money. I still stand by that.

I don't think anyone is telling you you're wrong.

If you want to talk about actual facts, we can always go back to the advertised travel of the machine which, last time I checked, still isn't what was advertised. I suspect I'll get a sentence parsed out to tell me that they are working on that and it'll be corrected in the future. I didn't say it wouldn't work in the future, I said it doesn't work now. That's a fact, not a biased opinion.

Totally agree. I'm pretty sure everyone acknowledges that the travel is less than advertised. Maybe I missed a post somewhere but I don't recall anyone claiming otherwise. There is no point in discussing whether or not that is real- it's 110% true, verifiable, indisputable. There's discussion to be had about whether or not that makes the company a bunch of crooks, or whether it's enough to prevent you from buying the machine, or any number of opinions coming from this fact. It's important to separate the fact from the implications of said fact.

At one point it was also a fact that you had to break images into separate files, then engrave them separately- but that's not a fact anymore, and people keep bringing it up. Correcting that misconception has brought Matt a bunch of flak, even though he's stating a fact.

There are a LOT of reasons to not like Glowforge, but geez, lots of people in this thread are openly hostile and seem to be looking for a fight. Scott I'm not calling you out or anything, I just mean the general feel of this 100+ page thread.

[Lee DeRaud]

Agreed that there are MANY posts showing that people have calibration issues, but there are also many posts of people who *don't* have calibration issues.

I'd like to point out that "average product quality" is a meaningless concept: it's not like you can use a working machine to cancel out one with issues. Any given machine works or not, and it's highly unlikely that the existence of working machines is any real comfort to the owner of a non-working machine. Further, the fact that the support forum is a public forum pretty much guarantees that the number of actual problems (greatly?) exceeds the number of forum-reported problems: once one person reports problem X and the support people respond, there's not much incentive for people with the same problem to post. Not to mention that I've seen support forums actively weed out duplicates just to keep the traffic manageable...not saying that's happening here but it's not an unreasonable approach to online support.

And yes, I realize that "working" is not a binary value. As I pointed out earlier, the existence of that purse doesn't imply that particular machine doesn't have an alignment issue. I could be wrong, not having the stomach to dive into that support forum, but I'm under the impression that "the alignment issue" is one of job start-point placement on the substrate, not dimensional accuracy from that point on.

[Bert McMahan]

I'd like to point out that "average product quality" is a meaningless concept: it's not like you can use a working machine to cancel out one with issues. Any given machine works or not, and it's highly unlikely that the existence of working machines is any real comfort to the owner of a non-working machine. Further, the fact that the support forum is a public forum pretty much guarantees that the number of actual problems (greatly?) exceeds the number of forum-reported problems: once one person reports problem X and the support people respond, there's not much incentive for people with the same problem to post. Not to mention that I've seen support forums actively weed out duplicates just to keep the traffic manageable...not saying that's happening here but it's not an unreasonable approach to online support.

And yes, I realize that "working" is not a binary value. As I pointed out earlier, the existence of that purse doesn't imply that particular machine doesn't have an alignment issue. I could be wrong, not having the stomach to dive into that support forum, but I'm under the impression that "the alignment issue" is one of job start-point placement on the substrate, not dimensional accuracy from that point on.

Totally agreed. My comment was meant to address the concept that "All GF's cannot cut accurately". I'm not saying that "All GF's do cut accurately", I'm just taking issue with the all vs none, us vs them, right vs wrong hyperbolic statements getting thrown around.

[Scott Shepherd]

Totally agreed. My comment was meant to address the concept that "All GF's cannot cut accurately". I'm not saying that "All GF's do cut accurately", I'm just taking issue with the all vs none, us vs them, right vs wrong hyperbolic statements getting thrown around.

Did someone here say that ALL machines did not cut accurately? Or was that something someone "read" into one of the posts? Or some of that hidden "implied" messages so many of us appear to post (without actually meaning to imply anything).

Let's also remember, this train runs both ways. When someone points out an issue from THEIR forums and we're told that it's not a big deal, it's the exact opposite when someone says that it's not a big deal. It's a big deal to the person with the problem. To gloss over real issues like they aren't issues is the same thing we're accused of doing.

It's also one thing to dismiss a problem that's raised and then come back months later and say that it was never a problem, it's a non issue. It might be a non issue now, but when it was raised, it was NOT a non issue. That appears to be the pattern. People post problems, it's denied that it's a problem, 3 months later, the problem is addressed, then it's stated backwards that some people complained about an issue that's been fixed. It's hysterical.

[Bert McMahan]

Did someone here say that ALL machines did not cut accurately? Or was that something someone "read" into one of the posts? Or some of that hidden "implied" messages so many of us appear to post (without actually meaning to imply anything).

I meant that as an example of an overgeneralization. I didn't dig through a bunch of posts to find a specific statement. Apologies if I implied that was what everyone was saying.

Let's also remember, this train runs both ways. When someone points out an issue from THEIR forums and we're told that it's not a big deal, it's the exact opposite when someone says that it's not a big deal. It's a big deal to the person with the problem. To gloss over real issues like they aren't issues is the same thing we're accused of doing.

I never said anything wasn't a big deal, and I didn't see where Matt said something wasn't a big deal, but again there are a ton of posts. Read back from my last few and you'll see I fully agree with you, the issues mentioned here are definitely a big deal.

It's also one thing to dismiss a problem that's raised and then come back months later and say that it was never a problem, it's a non issue. It might be a non issue now, but when it was raised, it was NOT a non issue. That appears to be the pattern. People post problems, it's denied that it's a problem, 3 months later, the problem is addressed, then it's stated backwards that some people complained about an issue that's been fixed. It's hysterical.

I didn't see where anyone in this thread are claiming real problems are non-issues, maybe I missed that. If we're still talking about splitting images, where did anyone say that's not a problem? It's an atrocious problem, but I didn't see anyone on this site saying it wasn't a big deal, only that it's *no longer* an issue. Not that it never was, but that it was fixed. Saying it was fixed means acknowledging it was an issue, right?

There are DEFINITELY posts that happened *since they fixed the issue* where people complain you have to split images. Matt posted a reply saying they claimed to have fixed the issue, and people seem to take that as him endorsing Glowforge. I'm not disagreeing that there are problems, I'm just not seeing this massive pattern of denial.

I'd like to really emphasize that I'm not trying to minimize the problems with the Glowforge. It's absolutely a dealbreaker for me if I ever wanted one, and I wouldn't recommend it to others either. IMHO, the Glowforge has enough real reasons to not like it without spreading misinformation.