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> 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; phrasi

> 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...
curryst 6y ago
> 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. Yeah, this is why it "prior to now had been free". They were basically packaging unlimited uploads into the hardware (which is almost universally a stupid idea). They did bring this on themselves. I'm curious why the opted for cloud optimization. Is it too hardware intensive for their target audience? My CAD software doesn't struggle too hard unless there are a ton of polygons, but my desktop is probably specced more than the average consumer. > 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. Here's the thing, though. It costs Samsung nothing for you to watch TV (they actually might make money if you watch more ads). Likewise, it costs Apple nothing for you to use your Mac. Updates cost them money, but that's a fixed cost. The amount you use the Mac doesn't make it cost more. Cricut is actually paying for these, so it does cost them money. Not saying what they did was right, but these things aren't the same. One potentially reasonable answer is that their optimizations are a significant part of their value add, and they weren't comfortable letting people run that software themselves. If that's the case, this doesn't bother me as long as they add the ability for it to use an open format. We need some kind of a consumer protection law that triggers a return window any time the functionality of a device that you have already purchased substantially changes (for a reasonable period of time after purchase). People who bought a Cricut should be able to return them now, and Cricut should have to eat that cost. If it's no longer viable to provide that cloud service for free, give people a version they can run on their desktop or add the ability to print open formats, or accept that a substantial number of customers are going to demand refunds that Cricut will have to process.
- zem 6y ago
  i would be a lot more sympathetic to the "Cricut is actually paying for these, so it does cost them money." argument if they hadn't also sued third-party software that would let you use your cricut locally without involving their cloud at all.

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...

curryst 6y ago

> 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. Yeah, this is why it "prior to now had been free". They were basically packaging unlimited uploads into the hardware (which is almost universally a stupid idea). They did bring this on themselves. I'm curious why the opted for cloud optimization. Is it too hardware intensive for their target audience? My CAD software doesn't struggle too hard unless there are a ton of polygons, but my desktop is probably specced more than the average consumer. > 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. Here's the thing, though. It costs Samsung nothing for you to watch TV (they actually might make money if you watch more ads). Likewise, it costs Apple nothing for you to use your Mac. Updates cost them money, but that's a fixed cost. The amount you use the Mac doesn't make it cost more. Cricut is actually paying for these, so it does cost them money. Not saying what they did was right, but these things aren't the same. One potentially reasonable answer is that their optimizations are a significant part of their value add, and they weren't comfortable letting people run that software themselves. If that's the case, this doesn't bother me as long as they add the ability for it to use an open format. We need some kind of a consumer protection law that triggers a return window any time the functionality of a device that you have already purchased substantially changes (for a reasonable period of time after purchase). People who bought a Cricut should be able to return them now, and Cricut should have to eat that cost. If it's no longer viable to provide that cloud service for free, give people a version they can run on their desktop or add the ability to print open formats, or accept that a substantial number of customers are going to demand refunds that Cricut will have to process.

zem 6y ago
i would be a lot more sympathetic to the "Cricut is actually paying for these, so it does cost them money." argument if they hadn't also sued third-party software that would let you use your cricut locally without involving their cloud at all.