Cricut gives up on plan to add subscription fee to millions of devices [Updated]

Update, 17:24 EDT: After several days of public hitting, Cricut CEO Ashish Arora announced that the company was reducing the retroactive need for existing customers to start subscribing to the platform.

“We will continue to allow an unlimited number of uploads of personal images and patterns to members with a Cricut account registered and activated with a cutting machine before December 31, 2021,” wrote Arora in an open letter to consumers. “If a machine is resold or transferred to a new user, the new user must set up their own Cricut account.”

Arora added that the company is exploring “accessible ways for our future users” who register after the end of this year as well to upload an unlimited number of standards.

Original story, 4:36 pm EDT: Another company that makes devices connected to the Internet is attracting the ire of customers by demanding a monthly subscription fee long after users have already invested hundreds of dollars in their products. This time, the company is Cricut, which just told customers that they will lose the ability to upload more than a few patterns a month, unless they start paying.

What is Cricut?

Cricut makes craft machines that make it possible to work in precise detail for millions of users. It is like the reverse of a printer: instead of putting your design on paper, it divides it into paper, cardboard, vinyl, fabric or other materials. Devices and accessory kits are sold everywhere at specialty craft and fabric stores, such as Michaels or Jo-Ann, and also by traditional retailers such as Walmart, Target and Amazon. The devices are sold at base prices of $ 179 or more, not counting the costs of tools, accessories and necessary refills.

You control the machines using a program called Design Space on your phone or computer. The principle has not changed since the release of home desktop publishing software in the 1990s. You place a pattern in Design Space and Cricut cuts the pattern in the material you loaded into it. Users can access a vast library of patterns and models through Design Space; some are free, while others cost from a few cents to several dollars each.

Owners can also design their own patterns if they feel particularly creative or ambitious, or they can buy what they are looking for from other members of the craft community on platforms like Etsy. Just upload your custom design to Design Space – which is, again, the software you installed on your own computer, tablet or phone – and you’re ready to go.

So far, at least.

What is happening?

Cricut launched a major change in a feature update announcement last Friday: any Cricut device owner who no the subscription to the Cricut Access cloud platform will be limited to no more than 20 uploads / imports per month to Design Space. (Projects made with elements that Cricut sells through Design Space do not count against the limit.) The change applies not only to new users, but also to existing owners.

The company can do this because, in fact, you don’t import a JPEG standard that you created or downloaded for the software on your PC, but instead for the cloud. Product descriptions on Cricut devices, however, do not make the requirement to connect to the cloud explicit. From Michaels, for example:

Many customers, as expected, are furious because they are now being instructed to pay a subscription fee of at least $ 7.99 a month to use a device they already own, mainly because the company also said it plans to make a request for an initial public offering of shares. A quick look at Facebook comments and tweets for the company shows an endless litany of users expressing their fury and threatening to switch to competing products.

That sounds depressingly familiar …

Just as the 21st century has given us an abundance of devices connected to the Internet, it has also given us many opportunities to see companies change the terms of customers who have already purchased a product, leaving users sitting in piles of rubbish for which they have paid a lot of money.

Last year, for example, the smart home hub Wink warned customers only a week that they would have to start paying a subscription fee or would lose access to the hardware they had been using for several years.

At least Wink remained in operation. Most commonly, companies shut down servers, feeding products from light bulbs to bathroom scales or pet feeders, turning expensive electronic devices into useless bricks.

Unfortunately, user license agreements for all Cricut products include a very common clause that allows the company (its parent company, Provo Crafts) to update the EULA to “reflect changes in business practices” whenever they want. The consumer resource? Stop using the thing.

Is that kind of thing cool? Why?

The answer, for now, is unsatisfactory: things are only illegal when there are laws that deal with them, and this space so far has no specific laws. That can change, however.

There are absolutely state and federal laws against unfair and deceptive consumer practices – what most people call “misleading advertising”, although the current statutes cover a broader and more specific territory than that. At the national level, the Federal Trade Commission enforces these regulations. At the state level, it usually falls to the consumer protection divisions in the offices of state attorney generals. Justin Brookman of Consumer Reports, who previously worked for the Federal Trade Commission, speculated on Twitter that a change after the fact, such as that made by Cricut, may violate the laws against unfair and deceptive acts and practices.

That said, connected devices are still very new territory in terms of regulation. When the FTC accepts complaints against a smart device company alleging unfair or deceptive practices, the complaints generally focus on consumer data privacy issues, focusing on times when users’ personal information has been poorly protected or secretly shared. Generally speaking, as long as a company discloses what it is doing in its license agreement, privacy policy and / or terms of service, it can do so legally, even if it is hostile to the consumer. (There are some specific and important exceptions.)

The FTC is beginning to observe obscure patterns on websites and applications that deceptively lead consumers to make certain disadvantageous decisions. Perhaps some kind of “black signature” analysis can follow. In the meantime, this leaves consumers where consumers usually end up: seeking redress in the civil court.

Three smart hub users last year filed a lawsuit against Wink, seeking class action status. In the complaint (PDF), they argue that adding Wink to the monthly fee comprises a “fraudulent bait and exchange pricing scheme” in violation of federal and state laws against deceptive or deceptive business practices. Wink’s terms of service, however, include a mandatory binding arbitration clause that excludes customers’ rights to sue. Some courts in recent months have questioned the validity of similar clauses from other companies, but how a judge can rule in any specific case, no one knows.