Exactly what activity turns a hobbyist into a commercial user?

[SketchUp3D_de]

…or having a dialog telling that the document opened was made with the non-commercial Make version shown in Make/Pro on every system with a different MAC address.

[endlessfix]

Basicaly an indelible watermark, similar to how vectorworks handles its educational version at a reduced price.

@sketch3d_de

dialog telling that the document opened was made with the non-commercial Make version

[gerretw]

Don’t get me wrong - I appreciate their free software option, and the learning runway it provides, however I am reminded of buying a car - you can buy a basic model or you can buy the same model with all the doo dads and whatcamacallits for more money - they give you those options. Perhaps Trimble feels the administrative cost connected with developing and selling a couple tiers of software doesn’t justify offering the options. Who knows?

My wife has transcription software for her business - the full version is about $5K, the edit version which she has is $1.6K and the student version is $500 bucks. And every 7 years or so, as they do annual upgrades hers becomes more and more obsolete, until we have to pop for another $1.6K to get her back up to speed. That software is only used for business so there is no question about the cost. It’s a write off.

So, perhaps, and you can correctly argue - you are getting off easy with purchasing sketchup. But the reason I brought it up - here is an example of a software company that offers a trimmed back version. They have obviously recognized the need for the lesser version and provide that option. If they can do it, why not Trimble?

G

[john_drivenupthewall]

@gerretw

If they can do it , why not Trimble?

profit margins may have something to do with it…

john

[gerretw]

Yeah - but I would think there are plenty that would pop for a mid priced version, enough to justify the time spent developing and marketing it. G

[SketchUp3D_de]

you allways purchase functionality with allmost every non-trivial product you buy… check the user manual of your television/car/smartphone for proofing this.

a version for e.g. half of the price with the functionality you don’t use removed … looks like cherry picking for me. With the 3D modeling functionality beeing obviously the key asset of SU, removing seldom used special functionality or LO doesn’t rectify a discount in the dimension you are probably expecting, at least to me.