Cricut backs off plan to add subscription fee to millions of devices [Updated]

Enlarge / Cricut is neither the first nor last internet-connected device to alter the deal after the fact and tell you to pray it doesn't alter it further. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Lucasfilm)

Update, 5:24 pm EDT: After several days of public blowback, Cricut CEO Ashish Arora announced the company was walking back the retroactive need for existing customers to start subscribing to the platform.

"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," Arora wrote 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 "affordable ways for our future users" who register after the end of this year also to upload an unlimited number of patterns.

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