John, I think most people see it from the opposite perspective, because with the subscription model (where you lose all access to SketchUp if you cancel the subscription), you’ve effectively raised the pain threshold and made it harder for someone to decide “not to upgrade”, because they are not just deciding if they want to pay in order to access the new features, but they have to decide if they want to continue to access the entire program at all.
You’re basically saying that if a user isn’t happy with new features or improvements, then they shouldn’t have access to SketchUp at all.
With a perpetual license, someone decides that the current features in the software are worth the price. They pay it, and own it perpetually. If the user feels a new release is not worth paying to upgrade, it’s a very easy decision for them to choose not to upgrade, knowing that they can still have access to the core program they previously purchased. This actually holds Trimble accountable because it creates incentive for you to provide enough improvements each year to earn continued upgrade fees from your existing customer base.
The upgrade fees are directly tied to the value of new features, not existing functionality that’s been in SketchUp for years already.
The subscription model provides more leverage to the developer, because let’s say a user isn’t interested in dashes, or any of the cloud features. It doesn’t matter, because the user would be forced to upgrade just to continue to have access to the existing core features of SketchUp. Or, of course, make the very hard decision to leave SketchUp altogether for an alternative.
In other words,
This is not true. With perpetual licenses (with $120/YR annual maintenance agreements), you have to convince users to pay the $120 annual maintenance every single year by continuing to improve the product with features that your users find value in and will happily pay the maintenance fee to get the upgrades.