if i purchase sketchup pro. am i obligated to upgrade every year, to use it? i have 2017pro and I’m very happy just using it. but I’m getting ready to retire. so i need to move the program to another computer. And, I’ll be on a fixed income. help!
No. You don’t have to upgrade to a newer version every year but the license is an annual subscription so you’ll have to pay that to keep using SketchUp.
There was no subscription in 2017 as your profile shows you are using.
You happen to have an unused 2018 license. I will send a message with the details for that. That should be an improvement over 2017, and certainly when it comes to adding or removing licenses, it doesn’t have the problems that 2017 has.
i still need to upgrade it 's subscription?
If you started now with the subscription you would get SketchUp 2023. You could continue to use SketchUp 2023 in a year after you renew the subscription. You would not be forced to upgrade to SketchUp 2024.
What is the renew cost and would i renew every year after
See this page for pricing: https://www.sketchup.com/plans-and-pricing#commercial
It’s a subscription so yes, you would renew every year.
As it is a subscription, it is not a “renewal” so much as paying for your subscription each year.
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so, if i get the sketchup go for i pay $119.00 will the subscription be less each year or do i have to buy PRO.
The prices listed on the page that @DaveR shared are for a year of subscription.
Sketchup Go is a web based version with few more features than the free version, the price doesn’t reduce after the first payment like it used to be with the perpetual license for upgrading, you just pay the same amount every year or more if the prices of the licenses increase. If you need to use plug-ins or layout you must get either the pro or the studio versions, those are the desktop versions the price of the pro is $350 and the studio is $750 per year. The details are on the link that Dave posted.
The SketchUp Go subscription is for the web version. If you want SketchUp Pro you have to subscribe to SketchUp Pro.
I have been using Sketchup for a while and was reluctant to upgrade due to the change of licensing conditions. Now, my question is, if I invest valuable time, also for the Sketchup community, to create extensions, is it fair that I would need to pay for a full Pro renewable those years I’m not using Sketchup professionally. To be able to use my own Plugin. Has the marketing team of Trimble given this any thought?
I would love to invest my time in such things, but somehow I have the feeling Trimble doesn’t recognize this community spirit as much, as Sketchup -@last and Google likewise- in the past. The Skechtup licensing model seems to have become more commercial, and therefore less inviting for people to invest their labour of love into the product.
I am sure you could ask other delveiopers how they go about maintaining their license. I do want to say that I have watched this community grow considerable since the Google days. The forum that Google mainained was slow and empty. Since coming to Trimble the community has grown and is more active than ever before.
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You know, that’s a question better asked directly to sketchup marketing team. 
(edit : or as Aaron says, to other extension developers.)
Can’t say for Last, except they quickly sold their product, but google created this big community only to shoot their project in the back of the head (behind the barn) as soon as they reached their goal. Google is a master of burying live projects along with their users.
I know people have grudges against trimble’s choices these last few years, but really, not being the devil’s advocate, overall, trimble is doing a better job than google did.
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The world isn’t perfect, but Google wasn’t all that bad. Offering Sketchup for free to a large market has helped Sketchup to become what it is. I haven’t upgraded, nor updated, since SU 8 - until recently. I also use Vectorworks, who are now following the Trimble model, only offering their software per subscription. Apart of the time one invests in the product it also means one won’t be able to acces ones own files. Honestly, some issues aren’t resolved in the subscription model, and it’s left to the tenant to resolve them… In Google days we saw many volunteers giving life to the forums, at least that was my impression. With all respect, Pierre. Now I get the impression the users are much more professional users, which I respect, but I also consider as a loss.
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Was it really slow… and empty?
I remember that forum. It wasn’t anywhere near as active as this one has been.
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Ok, thanks Dave. It still is a great forum. But we had some crazy discussions going on at the time. All by volunteers…
Most of us, including all of the sages are volunteers.