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Cricut Wants Users to Pay for Unlimited Use of Cutting Machines They Already Own

toomuchtodo 6y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/cricut/comments/m4x536/consolidated_list_of_actions_to_take/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cricut/comments/m4x536/consolidated...
plussed_reader 6y ago
Burn out the non-believers to solidify the customer base pre-IPO? Bold move, Cotton. Hope it wasn't 'brexit' logic fueling this decision.
hctaw 6y ago
Time to reverse engineer it and release an open source version of their software.
- kop316 6y ago
  It looks like it has been done for a fair bit: http://jimlund.org/build-to-spec/Setting%20Up%20Libcutter%20-%20Cricut%20Hacking%20Wiki.html http://jimlund.org/build-to-spec/Setting%20Up%20Libcutter%20... Cricut's USB exposes itself as a serial USB port, and it looks like the library is there to make SVGs cut for it. EDIT: It looks like there is some sort of encryption between the host and Cricut as well? So Cricut makes it intentionally unfriendly to make it work with thir party vendors.
  - 542458 6y ago
    IIRC this stopped working quite a few years ago. Now it appears every device has a factory-installed key, and cut files are encrypted with that key by their cloud software. Extremely scummy stuff.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  The makers of Cricut have sued those who have tried to market alternative software before. I'm guessing they'd issue DRM related takedown notices for any open source projects. Won't block the effort but make it less useful to the non-technical audience that usually buys Cricuts.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
prefrontal 6y ago
My wife and I are so irritated about this. She bought a Cricut Maker last year to make masks for friends and family. Custom images were cut for every person she made a mask for. Now, nine months after we bought the machine, we will have to start paying $10/mo for the same privileges we enjoyed when we first got it.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  If you used a credit card, make a warranty claim that the hardware was changed after delivery.
pfortuny 6y ago
So you buy a machine but can only use it by means of a web-based software? Big no there. Or big "caveat emptor".
w-j-w 6y ago
This has to be bait and switch, right? Does this run afoul any current consumer regulations? If not, we should probably write some new ones.
LocalH 6y ago
Services that require a cloud connection without a compelling reason are rent-seekers. There's absolutely no reason why the client software can't do the calculations that the server is doing to "optimize" cutting, other than for the purpose of turning something into a subscription that most assuredly should not be as such.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  > There's absolutely no reason why the client software can't do the calculations that the server is doing to "optimize" cutting... Well, there is one reason: the cloud is more powerful. A computationally heavy task can run locally, but if uploading to the cloud and sending the results back is 10x faster, most users would probably prefer that. However, the best way to solve that (IMO) is to by default do local computation and have a subscription for cloud access.
  - terramodule 6y ago
    The other reason is that “the cloud” is a big dongle in this case. It makes sure you have a subscription, pay your fees, and you can’t run away with software you never have. Also, it’s much easier for the vendor to manage the cloud-based software than on installed packages on your local matching.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    Given how much compute is available locally today (especially if your task is amenable to leveraging a GPU) there aren't a lot of consumer-level applications that can't run locally in an acceptable amount of time.
  - evilDagmar 6y ago
    Nonsense. It doesn't take anything more than an old netbook to "optimize" a set of floats that were already arranged as a series of linked coordinates in a couple of seconds. The typical desktop can easily handle several thousands of points in less than the time it takes to punt them across the internet and back. A full page PDF of text with a few thousand letters specified as TTF outlines prints in realtime on pretty much everything while being rasterized into far more data than the cutting instructions for a plotter with a knife, and Adobe isn't grabbing at wallets for the privilege of doing so.
mauvehaus 6y ago
"Own." This has been going on for a long time. A hacker space I belonged to in early 2011 had a Cricut and were using third party software for it (Make The Cut?). There was a big warning on the machine to not upgrade the software because Cricut had forced the publisher to drop support in a subsequent version. (ETA: details are hazy, but this is broadly correct as I understood the situation as a non-user) Nowadays, it looks like you can use MTC with "your" Cricut, but you have to pay Cricut for the privilege. I say fuck 'em. This isn't new, and it's not going to stop if people keep buying the machines.
- benrbray 6y ago
  What I don't understand is why a company like this doesn't embrace maker culture. They're already selling some seriously expensive hardware, so raise the price a bit if necessary to ensure a safe profit margin, while making all the software free and open source. The community would design an ecosystem of software around the Cricut for free and they wouldn't need to maintain a garbage web app that can't even parse SVGs correctly. Their business model should be closer to 3d printers than to inkjet.
  - brianwawok 6y ago
    90% of the people I know are not what most hackers would qualify as makers. Think of like teachers, who use it at home after work to make something cute for their classroom or a friend. By going this route, they almost certainly make more money. Hacker news users are not normal users.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      Truth. And we are the firewall too. Those ordinary people, who may not realize it even, depend on us to push back hard. Nobody else will. Few are qualified even. It is strange to be living in a time where law, government is so damn unaware and apparently, uncaring about these things.
      - tomxor 6y ago
atian 6y ago
I bought a Cricut Maker just a week ago to see if I can save on buying a full-on laser cutter for some thin acrylic sheets. The machine and software are incredibly locked down. Can’t use anything to work with the Cricut other than the jank desktop app it forces you to use. You have to be a bit creative with custom cuts by uploading an image to the design software and having it threshold the image to identify cut lines. It’s workable but seriously it’s just a toy for scrapbooking. It’s not surprising though. The machine is probably sold at breakeven like printers [0]. It’s a shame. The machine is decently built and can do a lot more. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/why-all-printers-suck-even-the-best-ones/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/why-all-printers-suc...
- cosmotic 6y ago
  Not to mention you need an account on their system.
  - toxik 6y ago
    Oculus does this too, you can't use the product _at all_ without registering it with your Facebook account. Should be illegal.
    - duckfang 6y ago
      Well, this is what we get when financed by Scam-a-con Valley companies. Selling hardware to do a thing well is so passe. So we force hardware to the cloud where we can then exert a toll booth for usage.
    - ddingus 6y ago
      I will never, ever own one. And that is the primary reason.
    - cwkoss 6y ago
      They are also very hostile to the mod system. They really don't want you to play outside of their walled garden. Hardware is nice, but their software decisions completely ruined it. Have a quest 1, will never buy oculus again.
petermcneeley 6y ago
This is just an instance of a whole class of problems which I doubt will be solved by movements like "right to repair". A higher level of approach is required to eliminate all of these issues in a generic manner. "right to repair" is an attempt to solve a whole class of problems but is fundamentally incoherent and will be easily circumvented. New ideas are required in this space otherwise the cycle will repeat indefinitely.
- blacksmith_tb 6y ago
  Isn't the traditional approach a class-action lawsuit? As long as the damages were high enough to cause other companies that might engage in equally nasty tactics to think twice.
  - petermcneeley 6y ago
    You are assuming that the EULA does not fully cover everything done here.
okprod 6y ago
Stallman is right again
- ddingus 6y ago
  Solid. Gcode, svg, dxf, png, hpgl, real postscript If I do not see one of those, the machine is a hard pass. Everytime.
leowbattle 6y ago
Is that even legal? Cricut does not own those machines any more, the people who bought them do. So by what right can they restrict the owners access to their own property?
- avs733 6y ago
  This is what I have never understood about 'clickwrap' on hardware (like my car). I have already bought it...shopped, signed a contract, paid for it, agreed with a bank in some cases on financing it...before I encoutner or have access the the licensing agreement. If I disagree with licensing can I juts take it back? Am I just precluded from using my smart driving features? I bought it, you don't get to establish rules after the fact...
  - paulgb 6y ago
    There used to be (possibly apocryphal but seemingly true) stories about people who manage to get the OEM cost of Windows refunded on a new computer purchase by telling Microsoft they did not agree with the terms. They were going to install Linux on it anyway so didn’t need it. I’m not sure if it was official policy (out of fear that clickwrap isn’t enforceable if you can’t opt out) or if it was just worth it to pay off people who went to that much effort, but either way good for them.
    - ectopod 6y ago
      There was a case in Italy the other day. Lenovo fought hard but had to pay, plus €20,000 damages for being a PITA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456524
    - flatiron 6y ago
      http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/#:~:text=For%20those%20who%20hadn't,with%20the%20machine%20they%20bought http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/#:~:text=For%20those....
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
ravenstine 6y ago
Unless things have changed with Cricut, I've always found their machines to be a huge ripoff – even more so than inkjet printers because at least those will allow you to print whatever you want. I remember looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own. It's possible to use your own designs, but the support for it is terrible since they clearly want a percentage of whatever designs you end up buying. In other words, it's not a useful device to own. If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed.
- mgarfias 6y ago
  Wish I’d know these things before I bought a circuit for the wife last year
- 542458 6y ago
  > looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own In ye old days that was the case, then the explore line came out (with them advertising that you could bring your own SVGs), and it worked okay for a while... But now we're back to locked down.
- curryst 6y ago
  I'm not super surprised by that. They're almost the only company competing at this low of a price range. I looked at laser cutters that could cut acrylic, and I don't think I found a single one cheaper than $2k or maybe $1.4k and that was for offbrand Chinese stuff. These cutters live in a weird market segment of people that want to work with a complicated device, but who don't want working with it to be complicated. It's, in some ways, an inverse of 3D printing, which has a lot of people who revel in the complexity of the device. I love my 3D printers, and putting them together from scratch so I kind of know how it functions. I can't imagine my girlfriend buying something like a Cricut that she has to assemble herself. > If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed. Do people really do that? I always presumed that Cricut's were for one offs or prototypes, and that by the time you had an Etsy store, you would just order printed and cut stickers from China. I may well be wrong, I just figured there would be huge cost savings for doing so because of the factory's economy of scale.
marcinzm 6y ago
There's also customer support responses saying that if you try to sell your machine then they will brick it.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  Where did you hear this? This would seem to be the more egregious sin ...
- mcv 6y ago
  Instead of selling it, it's probably better to return it for a refund.
- curryst 6y ago
  I really wish the CFAA applied here. It's infuriating that if I got into Cricut's network and bricked their rendering farm, I'd go to jail for God knows how long. But they can threaten to brick who knows how many Cricuts and that's all fine and dandy.
ddingus 6y ago
Mental note: Never, ever buy anything that team is involved with. I go way back with various machines. Cutting, bending, printing, whatever. If it won't take gcode, or some other open data to operate with, whatever it is, no matter how good it is, the answer is no. Always no. It has to take, gcode, svg, dxf, real postscript, hpgl, png, something. And it has to do that offline, period. There are great machines made in the 80's still making money, and I saw one just yesterday. Wonderful to see. Yes, I realize these are consumer grade machines, but what will also happen is these things will get abandoned. Maybe someone will reverse engineer them and they become useful over the longer term. I hope someone does.
- duckfang 6y ago
  We're trying to make it so existing Cricut devices can be unchained from their vaporous bullshit (aka: cloud). https://discord.gg/KsReJ3cN https://discord.gg/KsReJ3cN Come help!
  - ddingus 6y ago
    I would love to. Unfortunately, I am maxxed out. The fuck you would be worth it! Good luck!
- benrbray 6y ago
  Do you have any recommendations for machines that someone could reasonably fit in their home to replace a cricut?
  - atian 6y ago
    https://glowforge.com/our-products https://glowforge.com/our-products https://flux3dp.com/beamo/ https://flux3dp.com/beamo/ Glowforge Pro - $5,995 Glowforge Basic - $2,995 Beamo Desktop (30W) - $2,000 All-in-one laser cutter on your desk. Otherwise modifying a 3D printer (e.g. Ender 3/5) with CNC/Laser attachments work as well if your budget is much lower. :)
    - 6y ago
ortusdux 6y ago
Are they alone in this market? Are there viable alternatives within 2x the price?
- asinoastuto 6y ago
  my girlfriend uses https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/ https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/ for her side cake business. speaks highly of them but the software is pretty clunky.
- necovek 6y ago
  I've got Silhouette Portrait myself (think version 2), and that one prints under GNU/Linux too: it was a bit clunky to get going though (with Robocut). I don't use it heavily, but it works :)
handmodel 6y ago
I've personally been annoyed by this. About six months ago Cricut wouldn't let me open if I didn't update the software but my WiFi was having trouble working to get the connection long enough. As a result - I had to wait an entire day to use it. I will never buy Cricut again
rolph 6y ago
the legal remedy goes something like " it is an offense to sell a device then retroactively reduce function or demand further payment beyond the original purchase price " now we need the legal team and the class action, good thing for me im not a lawyer.
rblatz 6y ago
On another thread I saw a lot of people recommending the Silhouette Cameo as a freer alternative.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
anm89 6y ago
It's depressing to me that strategies like this seem to work for these companies. Any time someone tries to force me into a subscription, I hard cut ties, unless there is literally no alternative to the product and I need it for my livelihood. And in that case, good game.
Fwirt 6y ago
For those looking for an alternative, Silhouette machines are affordable and can be driven completely offline using an open-source Inkscape plugin. (So you can cut any file type that Inkscape can convert to a path, which is pretty much anything. SVG, DXF, PDF, raster image tracing...) https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette Silhouette's proprietary software comes with a "store" like Cricut for buying designs, but it's a resource hog and you have to pay for an SVG cutting feature. Inkscape is a little hassle to setup but once you get it working it's great.
aequitas 6y ago
Dutch/EU users should probably keep a lookout for a blogpost later this week here[0]. Arnoud is a Dutch legal expert on technology related topics and I've been told he might be looking into this. [0] https://blog.iusmentis.com https://blog.iusmentis.com
- aequitas 6y ago
  https://blog.iusmentis.com/2021/03/19/en-dan-kun-je-niet-meer-je-eigen-ontwerpen-snijden-met-je-cricut-plotter/ https://blog.iusmentis.com/2021/03/19/en-dan-kun-je-niet-mee... In short, the product was sold with the promise of unlimited free uploads. Dutch customers can go to the seller they bought the machine from (not Cricut) and demand to have this functionality restored or get a full refund (the plotter has to returned to the seller) if it cannot be restored by the seller. How this is then resolved between the seller and Cricut is not the customers problem, they have a 'contract' with the seller, not Cricut.
shrimp_emoji 6y ago
Pre-Internet: capitalism is bound by the physical constraints it was developed under Post-Internet: capitalism has to turn evil to survive
nrmitchi 6y ago
> will now start charging users a monthly subscription for unlimited printing, which prior to now had been free. This is line is just infuriating to me; phrasing this change as a "we were giving you something for free before, but you should be paying for it". Of course it was "free"; the thing had already been paid for. This is about as ridiculous as Samsung charging me a subscription fee for unlimited watch-time on my TV, which previously was free, or Apple requiring a subscription for the unlimited use of my Macbook. Wrapping perfectly-functional-locally devices with a "cloud service" in order to maintain control needs to be reigned in. The cricut argument here of "[the cloud is needed to] optimize the design and the cutting instructions" is a problem of their own making.
- dawnerd 6y ago
  The only thing that makes this different is you’re uploading to cricuts servers which do processing so I can see why they’d want recurring revenue for that. But it shouldn’t be forced on customers that have already purchased before the plans were introduced. That’s just scummy.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    The servers doing processing are completely unnecessary. There isn't anything happening on those little machine that requires it be done that way. Just a little food for thought: Say their servers did a lot of processing to ensure that your designs were cut optimally or were successful along with the time or some other criteria. That's an actual real value-add, and people may be willing to pay for it. How do we know whether it's a value-add or not? Open data is how we know. Free tools and do those job perfectly well. We've got a ton of them. None of this is new.
  - Isthatablackgsd 6y ago
    A few apps have done this and they only did it to take a full advantage of the pandemic. Two of my daily driver apps went this route during the pandemic (that is more fuckup when you think about it) and I uninstalled it immediately. One app took really cool features and completely nerfed/degraded it and hide it behind the subscription. Seriously, they put the crippled feature behind a subscription, wat the...
patrickyeon 6y ago
It's interesting that the moment RMS speaks about really crystalizing software freedom in his mind was when he couldn't access the software running a printer so that he could add a feature. It seems like every generation needs their own evil printer (or printer-like) manufacturer to radicalize the next round of user rights advocates.
worik 6y ago
Is this not what law is for? To stop this sort of thing.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > Is this not what law is for? To stop this sort of thing. Nope. That's what voting with your dollars is for, as in: don't buy the effing thing.
jarbus 6y ago
This article just made me start a no-buy list: A list of companies I need to remember to never buy from. Can't believe I never thought about this until now.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  Mine started when Sony distributed root kits on CDs. Had been a fan of the company until then.
avipars 6y ago
Basically, if the company goes bankrupt, your machines would be paperweights... This is unfortunate
smnrchrds 6y ago
Have you heard of Baumol's cost disease? It's the idea that if a sector of the economy experiences productivity growth, wages in that sector grow; as a consequence, wages in the other sector grow, because otherwise workers would flee to the higher wage sector; but because those sectors have not seen productivity growth, the price of what they produce will go up. I think we are experiencing a similar problem in the world of new enterprises. Software companies can produce huge growth/profit/market valuations/etc. To attract the capital required to create the company, they have to promise and do everything in their power to achieve the same money-printing results as software ones. But they are not inherently high-potential as software companies, so the price and quality of their products suffer. Everyone wants to be a tech company because that's the way to survive and thrive in the current capital climate. Banks, airlines, real estate leasing companies, hotels, etc. mimic tech companies, because otherwise, capital looks elsewhere and the company won't get funded.
boublepop 6y ago
Seems like a company suicide right when they are leading up to IPO. What on earth are they thinking?
nonbirithm 6y ago
With the amount of sophisticated open source 3D printers and the amount of outrage at such a change, I have to wonder why there isn't as much of a market for an open source cutting machine in the same price range. Clearly there's a lot of interest, and I was once dependent on a Cricut myself. It sounds like there's more investment being put into hacking Cricut's existing devices to be open.
teclordphrack2 6y ago
I think when this is actually looked at that cricut is going to be found to be locally processing the images and the only cloud aspect is data farming.
atian 6y ago
Farming circuit accounts may amount to a small fortune after 2021. > A Letter to the Cricut Community, From Ashish Arora CEO > We will continue to allow an unlimited number of personal image and pattern uploads for members with a Cricut account registered and activated with a cutting machine before December 31, 2021. This benefit will continue for the lifetime of your use of these machines.
cricutexplorer 6y ago
Cricut owner here. Immediate work-arounds that come to mind are packing lots of assets into one SVG upload. Once it's in Cricuts cloud you get copy/paste for free. The 20 file upload limit could be expanded that way.
anfilt 6y ago
I really wish more people would understand how such locked down hardware from phones to even tractors is infringing on peoples property rights. Software updates like this show with hard kick who really has the keys to the house. Sadly, I wonder how many people will take this lesson of getting burned and apply it to other devices.
mdavis6890 6y ago
Alternative Viewpoint: Speculating a little bit, this might actually the best thing for the end users. This device already depended on software and cloud services to function at all. Probably Cricut is not doing well financially (I have no data in this regard) and is in danger of not staying in business. This at least gives the die-hard users an option, and helps the company pay for ongoing support of the software and running of the service. Keep in mind they're probably losing money on the hardware. There have been plenty of other companies who were not able to make the business model work, folded, and left their users stranded with hardware that is no longer supported and doesn't work. That's a worse outcome. (Juicero, Picobrew) I'm not justifying hardware that depends on services like this - I wouldn't design it that way, and I wouldn't buy something like this. But here we are...

https://old.reddit.com/r/cricut/comments/m4x536/consolidated_list_of_actions_to_take/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cricut/comments/m4x536/consolidated...

plussed_reader 6y ago

Burn out the non-believers to solidify the customer base pre-IPO? Bold move, Cotton. Hope it wasn't 'brexit' logic fueling this decision.

hctaw 6y ago

Time to reverse engineer it and release an open source version of their software.

kop316 6y ago
It looks like it has been done for a fair bit: http://jimlund.org/build-to-spec/Setting%20Up%20Libcutter%20-%20Cricut%20Hacking%20Wiki.html http://jimlund.org/build-to-spec/Setting%20Up%20Libcutter%20... Cricut's USB exposes itself as a serial USB port, and it looks like the library is there to make SVGs cut for it. EDIT: It looks like there is some sort of encryption between the host and Cricut as well? So Cricut makes it intentionally unfriendly to make it work with thir party vendors.
- 542458 6y ago
  IIRC this stopped working quite a few years ago. Now it appears every device has a factory-installed key, and cut files are encrypted with that key by their cloud software. Extremely scummy stuff.
marcinzm 6y ago
The makers of Cricut have sued those who have tried to market alternative software before. I'm guessing they'd issue DRM related takedown notices for any open source projects. Won't block the effort but make it less useful to the non-technical audience that usually buys Cricuts.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

prefrontal 6y ago

My wife and I are so irritated about this. She bought a Cricut Maker last year to make masks for friends and family. Custom images were cut for every person she made a mask for. Now, nine months after we bought the machine, we will have to start paying $10/mo for the same privileges we enjoyed when we first got it.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
If you used a credit card, make a warranty claim that the hardware was changed after delivery.

pfortuny 6y ago

So you buy a machine but can only use it by means of a web-based software? Big no there. Or big "caveat emptor".

w-j-w 6y ago

This has to be bait and switch, right? Does this run afoul any current consumer regulations? If not, we should probably write some new ones.

LocalH 6y ago

Services that require a cloud connection without a compelling reason are rent-seekers. There's absolutely no reason why the client software can't do the calculations that the server is doing to "optimize" cutting, other than for the purpose of turning something into a subscription that most assuredly should not be as such.

colejohnson66 6y ago
> There's absolutely no reason why the client software can't do the calculations that the server is doing to "optimize" cutting... Well, there is one reason: the cloud is more powerful. A computationally heavy task can run locally, but if uploading to the cloud and sending the results back is 10x faster, most users would probably prefer that. However, the best way to solve that (IMO) is to by default do local computation and have a subscription for cloud access.
- terramodule 6y ago
  The other reason is that “the cloud” is a big dongle in this case. It makes sure you have a subscription, pay your fees, and you can’t run away with software you never have. Also, it’s much easier for the vendor to manage the cloud-based software than on installed packages on your local matching.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  Given how much compute is available locally today (especially if your task is amenable to leveraging a GPU) there aren't a lot of consumer-level applications that can't run locally in an acceptable amount of time.
- evilDagmar 6y ago
  Nonsense. It doesn't take anything more than an old netbook to "optimize" a set of floats that were already arranged as a series of linked coordinates in a couple of seconds. The typical desktop can easily handle several thousands of points in less than the time it takes to punt them across the internet and back. A full page PDF of text with a few thousand letters specified as TTF outlines prints in realtime on pretty much everything while being rasterized into far more data than the cutting instructions for a plotter with a knife, and Adobe isn't grabbing at wallets for the privilege of doing so.

mauvehaus 6y ago

"Own." This has been going on for a long time. A hacker space I belonged to in early 2011 had a Cricut and were using third party software for it (Make The Cut?). There was a big warning on the machine to not upgrade the software because Cricut had forced the publisher to drop support in a subsequent version. (ETA: details are hazy, but this is broadly correct as I understood the situation as a non-user) Nowadays, it looks like you can use MTC with "your" Cricut, but you have to pay Cricut for the privilege. I say fuck 'em. This isn't new, and it's not going to stop if people keep buying the machines.

benrbray 6y ago
What I don't understand is why a company like this doesn't embrace maker culture. They're already selling some seriously expensive hardware, so raise the price a bit if necessary to ensure a safe profit margin, while making all the software free and open source. The community would design an ecosystem of software around the Cricut for free and they wouldn't need to maintain a garbage web app that can't even parse SVGs correctly. Their business model should be closer to 3d printers than to inkjet.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  90% of the people I know are not what most hackers would qualify as makers. Think of like teachers, who use it at home after work to make something cute for their classroom or a friend. By going this route, they almost certainly make more money. Hacker news users are not normal users.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    Truth. And we are the firewall too. Those ordinary people, who may not realize it even, depend on us to push back hard. Nobody else will. Few are qualified even. It is strange to be living in a time where law, government is so damn unaware and apparently, uncaring about these things.
    - tomxor 6y ago

atian 6y ago

I bought a Cricut Maker just a week ago to see if I can save on buying a full-on laser cutter for some thin acrylic sheets. The machine and software are incredibly locked down. Can’t use anything to work with the Cricut other than the jank desktop app it forces you to use. You have to be a bit creative with custom cuts by uploading an image to the design software and having it threshold the image to identify cut lines. It’s workable but seriously it’s just a toy for scrapbooking. It’s not surprising though. The machine is probably sold at breakeven like printers [0]. It’s a shame. The machine is decently built and can do a lot more. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/why-all-printers-suck-even-the-best-ones/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/why-all-printers-suc...

cosmotic 6y ago
Not to mention you need an account on their system.
- toxik 6y ago
  Oculus does this too, you can't use the product _at all_ without registering it with your Facebook account. Should be illegal.
  - duckfang 6y ago
    Well, this is what we get when financed by Scam-a-con Valley companies. Selling hardware to do a thing well is so passe. So we force hardware to the cloud where we can then exert a toll booth for usage.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    I will never, ever own one. And that is the primary reason.
  - cwkoss 6y ago
    They are also very hostile to the mod system. They really don't want you to play outside of their walled garden. Hardware is nice, but their software decisions completely ruined it. Have a quest 1, will never buy oculus again.

petermcneeley 6y ago

This is just an instance of a whole class of problems which I doubt will be solved by movements like "right to repair". A higher level of approach is required to eliminate all of these issues in a generic manner. "right to repair" is an attempt to solve a whole class of problems but is fundamentally incoherent and will be easily circumvented. New ideas are required in this space otherwise the cycle will repeat indefinitely.

blacksmith_tb 6y ago
Isn't the traditional approach a class-action lawsuit? As long as the damages were high enough to cause other companies that might engage in equally nasty tactics to think twice.
- petermcneeley 6y ago
  You are assuming that the EULA does not fully cover everything done here.

okprod 6y ago

Stallman is right again

ddingus 6y ago
Solid. Gcode, svg, dxf, png, hpgl, real postscript If I do not see one of those, the machine is a hard pass. Everytime.

leowbattle 6y ago

Is that even legal? Cricut does not own those machines any more, the people who bought them do. So by what right can they restrict the owners access to their own property?

avs733 6y ago
This is what I have never understood about 'clickwrap' on hardware (like my car). I have already bought it...shopped, signed a contract, paid for it, agreed with a bank in some cases on financing it...before I encoutner or have access the the licensing agreement. If I disagree with licensing can I juts take it back? Am I just precluded from using my smart driving features? I bought it, you don't get to establish rules after the fact...
- paulgb 6y ago
  There used to be (possibly apocryphal but seemingly true) stories about people who manage to get the OEM cost of Windows refunded on a new computer purchase by telling Microsoft they did not agree with the terms. They were going to install Linux on it anyway so didn’t need it. I’m not sure if it was official policy (out of fear that clickwrap isn’t enforceable if you can’t opt out) or if it was just worth it to pay off people who went to that much effort, but either way good for them.
  - ectopod 6y ago
    There was a case in Italy the other day. Lenovo fought hard but had to pay, plus €20,000 damages for being a PITA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456524 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26456524
  - flatiron 6y ago
    http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/#:~:text=For%20those%20who%20hadn't,with%20the%20machine%20they%20bought http://marc.merlins.org/linux/refundday/#:~:text=For%20those....
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

ravenstine 6y ago

Unless things have changed with Cricut, I've always found their machines to be a huge ripoff – even more so than inkjet printers because at least those will allow you to print whatever you want. I remember looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own. It's possible to use your own designs, but the support for it is terrible since they clearly want a percentage of whatever designs you end up buying. In other words, it's not a useful device to own. If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed.

mgarfias 6y ago
Wish I’d know these things before I bought a circuit for the wife last year
542458 6y ago
> looking into Cricut and realizing it was made to force you into buying designs from their store rather than giving you the ability to provide an SVG(or even gcode?) of your own In ye old days that was the case, then the explore line came out (with them advertising that you could bring your own SVGs), and it worked okay for a while... But now we're back to locked down.
curryst 6y ago
I'm not super surprised by that. They're almost the only company competing at this low of a price range. I looked at laser cutters that could cut acrylic, and I don't think I found a single one cheaper than $2k or maybe $1.4k and that was for offbrand Chinese stuff. These cutters live in a weird market segment of people that want to work with a complicated device, but who don't want working with it to be complicated. It's, in some ways, an inverse of 3D printing, which has a lot of people who revel in the complexity of the device. I love my 3D printers, and putting them together from scratch so I kind of know how it functions. I can't imagine my girlfriend buying something like a Cricut that she has to assemble herself. > If you think you're going to use a Cricut to make things you can sell on Etsy or the like, you will be sorely disappointed. Do people really do that? I always presumed that Cricut's were for one offs or prototypes, and that by the time you had an Etsy store, you would just order printed and cut stickers from China. I may well be wrong, I just figured there would be huge cost savings for doing so because of the factory's economy of scale.

marcinzm 6y ago

There's also customer support responses saying that if you try to sell your machine then they will brick it.

jasonjayr 6y ago
Where did you hear this? This would seem to be the more egregious sin ...
mcv 6y ago
Instead of selling it, it's probably better to return it for a refund.
curryst 6y ago
I really wish the CFAA applied here. It's infuriating that if I got into Cricut's network and bricked their rendering farm, I'd go to jail for God knows how long. But they can threaten to brick who knows how many Cricuts and that's all fine and dandy.

ddingus 6y ago

Mental note: Never, ever buy anything that team is involved with. I go way back with various machines. Cutting, bending, printing, whatever. If it won't take gcode, or some other open data to operate with, whatever it is, no matter how good it is, the answer is no. Always no. It has to take, gcode, svg, dxf, real postscript, hpgl, png, something. And it has to do that offline, period. There are great machines made in the 80's still making money, and I saw one just yesterday. Wonderful to see. Yes, I realize these are consumer grade machines, but what will also happen is these things will get abandoned. Maybe someone will reverse engineer them and they become useful over the longer term. I hope someone does.

duckfang 6y ago
We're trying to make it so existing Cricut devices can be unchained from their vaporous bullshit (aka: cloud). https://discord.gg/KsReJ3cN https://discord.gg/KsReJ3cN Come help!
- ddingus 6y ago
  I would love to. Unfortunately, I am maxxed out. The fuck you would be worth it! Good luck!
benrbray 6y ago
Do you have any recommendations for machines that someone could reasonably fit in their home to replace a cricut?
- atian 6y ago
  https://glowforge.com/our-products https://glowforge.com/our-products https://flux3dp.com/beamo/ https://flux3dp.com/beamo/ Glowforge Pro - $5,995 Glowforge Basic - $2,995 Beamo Desktop (30W) - $2,000 All-in-one laser cutter on your desk. Otherwise modifying a 3D printer (e.g. Ender 3/5) with CNC/Laser attachments work as well if your budget is much lower. :)
  - 6y ago

ortusdux 6y ago

Are they alone in this market? Are there viable alternatives within 2x the price?

asinoastuto 6y ago
my girlfriend uses https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/ https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/ for her side cake business. speaks highly of them but the software is pretty clunky.
necovek 6y ago
I've got Silhouette Portrait myself (think version 2), and that one prints under GNU/Linux too: it was a bit clunky to get going though (with Robocut). I don't use it heavily, but it works :)

handmodel 6y ago

I've personally been annoyed by this. About six months ago Cricut wouldn't let me open if I didn't update the software but my WiFi was having trouble working to get the connection long enough. As a result - I had to wait an entire day to use it. I will never buy Cricut again

rolph 6y ago

the legal remedy goes something like " it is an offense to sell a device then retroactively reduce function or demand further payment beyond the original purchase price " now we need the legal team and the class action, good thing for me im not a lawyer.

rblatz 6y ago

On another thread I saw a lot of people recommending the Silhouette Cameo as a freer alternative.

deleted 6y ago

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anm89 6y ago

It's depressing to me that strategies like this seem to work for these companies. Any time someone tries to force me into a subscription, I hard cut ties, unless there is literally no alternative to the product and I need it for my livelihood. And in that case, good game.

Fwirt 6y ago

For those looking for an alternative, Silhouette machines are affordable and can be driven completely offline using an open-source Inkscape plugin. (So you can cut any file type that Inkscape can convert to a path, which is pretty much anything. SVG, DXF, PDF, raster image tracing...) https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette https://github.com/fablabnbg/inkscape-silhouette Silhouette's proprietary software comes with a "store" like Cricut for buying designs, but it's a resource hog and you have to pay for an SVG cutting feature. Inkscape is a little hassle to setup but once you get it working it's great.

aequitas 6y ago

Dutch/EU users should probably keep a lookout for a blogpost later this week here[0]. Arnoud is a Dutch legal expert on technology related topics and I've been told he might be looking into this. [0] https://blog.iusmentis.com https://blog.iusmentis.com

aequitas 6y ago
https://blog.iusmentis.com/2021/03/19/en-dan-kun-je-niet-meer-je-eigen-ontwerpen-snijden-met-je-cricut-plotter/ https://blog.iusmentis.com/2021/03/19/en-dan-kun-je-niet-mee... In short, the product was sold with the promise of unlimited free uploads. Dutch customers can go to the seller they bought the machine from (not Cricut) and demand to have this functionality restored or get a full refund (the plotter has to returned to the seller) if it cannot be restored by the seller. How this is then resolved between the seller and Cricut is not the customers problem, they have a 'contract' with the seller, not Cricut.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago

Pre-Internet: capitalism is bound by the physical constraints it was developed under Post-Internet: capitalism has to turn evil to survive

nrmitchi 6y ago

> will now start charging users a monthly subscription for unlimited printing, which prior to now had been free. This is line is just infuriating to me; phrasing this change as a "we were giving you something for free before, but you should be paying for it". Of course it was "free"; the thing had already been paid for. This is about as ridiculous as Samsung charging me a subscription fee for unlimited watch-time on my TV, which previously was free, or Apple requiring a subscription for the unlimited use of my Macbook. Wrapping perfectly-functional-locally devices with a "cloud service" in order to maintain control needs to be reigned in. The cricut argument here of "[the cloud is needed to] optimize the design and the cutting instructions" is a problem of their own making.

dawnerd 6y ago
The only thing that makes this different is you’re uploading to cricuts servers which do processing so I can see why they’d want recurring revenue for that. But it shouldn’t be forced on customers that have already purchased before the plans were introduced. That’s just scummy.
- ddingus 6y ago
  The servers doing processing are completely unnecessary. There isn't anything happening on those little machine that requires it be done that way. Just a little food for thought: Say their servers did a lot of processing to ensure that your designs were cut optimally or were successful along with the time or some other criteria. That's an actual real value-add, and people may be willing to pay for it. How do we know whether it's a value-add or not? Open data is how we know. Free tools and do those job perfectly well. We've got a ton of them. None of this is new.
- Isthatablackgsd 6y ago
  A few apps have done this and they only did it to take a full advantage of the pandemic. Two of my daily driver apps went this route during the pandemic (that is more fuckup when you think about it) and I uninstalled it immediately. One app took really cool features and completely nerfed/degraded it and hide it behind the subscription. Seriously, they put the crippled feature behind a subscription, wat the...

patrickyeon 6y ago

It's interesting that the moment RMS speaks about really crystalizing software freedom in his mind was when he couldn't access the software running a printer so that he could add a feature. It seems like every generation needs their own evil printer (or printer-like) manufacturer to radicalize the next round of user rights advocates.

worik 6y ago

Is this not what law is for? To stop this sort of thing.

ur-whale 6y ago
> Is this not what law is for? To stop this sort of thing. Nope. That's what voting with your dollars is for, as in: don't buy the effing thing.

jarbus 6y ago

This article just made me start a no-buy list: A list of companies I need to remember to never buy from. Can't believe I never thought about this until now.

kwhitefoot 6y ago
Mine started when Sony distributed root kits on CDs. Had been a fan of the company until then.

avipars 6y ago

Basically, if the company goes bankrupt, your machines would be paperweights... This is unfortunate

smnrchrds 6y ago

Have you heard of Baumol's cost disease? It's the idea that if a sector of the economy experiences productivity growth, wages in that sector grow; as a consequence, wages in the other sector grow, because otherwise workers would flee to the higher wage sector; but because those sectors have not seen productivity growth, the price of what they produce will go up. I think we are experiencing a similar problem in the world of new enterprises. Software companies can produce huge growth/profit/market valuations/etc. To attract the capital required to create the company, they have to promise and do everything in their power to achieve the same money-printing results as software ones. But they are not inherently high-potential as software companies, so the price and quality of their products suffer. Everyone wants to be a tech company because that's the way to survive and thrive in the current capital climate. Banks, airlines, real estate leasing companies, hotels, etc. mimic tech companies, because otherwise, capital looks elsewhere and the company won't get funded.

boublepop 6y ago

Seems like a company suicide right when they are leading up to IPO. What on earth are they thinking?

nonbirithm 6y ago

With the amount of sophisticated open source 3D printers and the amount of outrage at such a change, I have to wonder why there isn't as much of a market for an open source cutting machine in the same price range. Clearly there's a lot of interest, and I was once dependent on a Cricut myself. It sounds like there's more investment being put into hacking Cricut's existing devices to be open.

teclordphrack2 6y ago

I think when this is actually looked at that cricut is going to be found to be locally processing the images and the only cloud aspect is data farming.

atian 6y ago

Farming circuit accounts may amount to a small fortune after 2021. > A Letter to the Cricut Community, From Ashish Arora CEO > We will continue to allow an unlimited number of personal image and pattern uploads for members with a Cricut account registered and activated with a cutting machine before December 31, 2021. This benefit will continue for the lifetime of your use of these machines.

cricutexplorer 6y ago

Cricut owner here. Immediate work-arounds that come to mind are packing lots of assets into one SVG upload. Once it's in Cricuts cloud you get copy/paste for free. The 20 file upload limit could be expanded that way.

anfilt 6y ago

I really wish more people would understand how such locked down hardware from phones to even tractors is infringing on peoples property rights. Software updates like this show with hard kick who really has the keys to the house. Sadly, I wonder how many people will take this lesson of getting burned and apply it to other devices.

mdavis6890 6y ago

Alternative Viewpoint: Speculating a little bit, this might actually the best thing for the end users. This device already depended on software and cloud services to function at all. Probably Cricut is not doing well financially (I have no data in this regard) and is in danger of not staying in business. This at least gives the die-hard users an option, and helps the company pay for ongoing support of the software and running of the service. Keep in mind they're probably losing money on the hardware. There have been plenty of other companies who were not able to make the business model work, folded, and left their users stranded with hardware that is no longer supported and doesn't work. That's a worse outcome. (Juicero, Picobrew) I'm not justifying hardware that depends on services like this - I wouldn't design it that way, and I wouldn't buy something like this. But here we are...