What I am trying to understand is what the difference is between paying each year and…paying each year.
Call it ‘Maintenance & Support’, and it’s kind of ok, call it subscription and all hell breaks loose.
Of the three arguments you give, two are about cost:
Yes, it is more expensive, would you be willing to subscribe if it was $180 a year?
The other is about not being able to work:
Now, this is interesting, for there are two kind of subscribers: The ones that never had a classic license and the ones that have and migrated their classic license.
The ‘newbies’ won’t mind, they knew it all along.
The ‘Classic’ owners can still have acces with either an extension, 3D Warehouse or had a policy to ‘Save As’ an earlier version.
And here is where it starts to get fuzzy, because not all comments in these threads reflect the same understanding about the workings of subscribing, tha cloud, their data etc. Some are even trying to riot things up with statements that are simply not true.
With my ‘ignorent’ questions, I am trying to get beyond the real pain that is obviously the reason for all the commotion.
For me, these are difficult times, since I work for a Distributor that sells SketchUp, amongst other software, but being a SketchUp user since version 4 (Bought it, upgraded it, payed a three year maintenance when Trimble took over, forgot to pay, payed additional fees etc.) so I am constantly asking myself: "Would I buy it if I was still in the business?’
So I think I can understand the real pain, but I have no other control than to report to SketchUp’s marketing or development team. Believe me, I can be a pain in the but it is always about improving the software from a user’s perspective, I hope.
For my work, I get to have access to SketchUp, all the time, btw. I do have a classic 2020 license and it will always be mine…