He said to me not to complain, and instead of do what eric is listing in his post…
My previous reply to Eric is Magazine don’t apply forced subscription. Don’t you have a shop in Boulder selling magazines and newspapers individually?
Yes, this could also be a weakness of that system, diamond contributors would have more input in the development then gold (currently very popular at 25 dollar/month, which is about the same as a subscription to SketchUp)
Why do you think that companies contribute?
Mike,
The forced subscription license is very new. It’s not an energy subscription. With software, we work with personal data. It couldn’t be easily compared. It was introduced by Adobe which revenue have increased since the move. This is not the case for Autodesk.
Fortunately, there is companies who took the opposite. Affinity reply to Adobe. Graphisoft reply to Autodesk.
Forced subscription is not just a price increase problem, there are a lot of perverse effects.
We hear a lot here “The SketchUp you love”. This may have been my case so far and the reason for my reactions.
In your opinion, does Trimble love more SketchUp or money?
Source: Get Involved — blender.org
For those of you that think that Blender is done by a bunch of volunteers check this out:
That’s a big chunk of how they get funded. Engineers aren’t cheap! Can people volunteer to make Blender better? Yes. Is that how it’s built, for free? No.
Interestingly their most popular “membership” choice is $30 per month. $30*12=$360 per year.
I thought my post was fine, I’m sorry it bothered you. This is a big change for SketchUp and there are obviously some divisive opinions here. While I did poke a little fun with an analogy I followed up with what I think was a pretty useful take on what’s going on. Your situation is different than mine, or anyone else’s here.
I think SketchUp would be better served if you explained a little deeper what kind of pricing model would work for you and why.
They way you expressed made it look like Blender was being done by a bunch of unorganized people, that’s why I replied to you. Of course there are lot of “independent “ developers doing a lot of awesome things for Blender but the core development is done through the Blender Foundation and they don’t work for free, far from it.
Yeah, but you are not force to pay, it’s up to you and how much you can afford donating. And if you stop supporting Blender you can still use Blender for your whole life, and always the latest version 
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Eric,
I don’t understand your comparaison with Blender.
Blender is free, without subscription. People may donate what they want. I specify that I put myself in Blender since the announcement of Trimble on the forced subscription.
I also developed solutions with Grasshopper which is as exciting as SketchUp before Trimble. For the moment, I produce 100% then 95% on SketchUp (+ 5% Grasshopper).
I would like to explain here which economic model I would like for SketchUp, but it is a waste of time. We are not listened. SketchUp updates since the purchase of Trimble show the gap and misunderstanding between Trimble and the users.
We continued to pay for our updates, so as not to lose our license and continue to use SketchUp, without much enthusiasm for what Trimble SketchUp call “new features”. With the transition to $299 per year and a blackmail subscription system (if we stop paying, we no longer access our files), it’s over.
The point I’m trying to make here is that Blender isn’t free to create. It costs a recurring amount of revenue to get it. The difference here is that Blender gets money in a different fashion. They take donations and sponsorships.
Read that, Blender would not exist without… money. Neither would SketchUp.
SketchUp chooses a more traditional way to get money from users. Make no mistake that both Blender and SketchUp need money to operate and they get it form their userbase one way or another.
Eric, yes people make donation to Blender, because they like it.
And Trimble force their customers to forced subscription (more expansive) because Trimble love their customers.
Just a few posts up:
So yes, part of this discussion is the merits/funding of software which is why I brought this up. I can’t argue which software is better for a particular project/person but it is VERY worth nothing that the perception that Blender is “free” is wrong.
Trimble hasn’t forced anyone to do anything. Did they take away your old license? Your old models? Did they kidnap you in a windowless van and force you to purchase?
Look, at the end of the day we’re all voting with our wallets. Some people vote for Blender, some vote for SketchUp, some for others. Some for both, or even many! Your CAD software isn’t a binary choice.
But the notion that Blender is some group of altruistic engineers working for free for the betterment of CAD wrong. They operate like any other company that have costs and overhead. They just have a different purchasing option.
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No, you always have access to your files, why is this so hard to understand?
There is no ‘forcing’, if you do not want it, you stop paying.
Keep the files you have created and if using Trimble Connect, set to the Free plan, which means access to the files on your system by uploading.
Everyone is given a choise, the date is set.
I don’t think I am. Did you buy a copy of SketchUp? You own that.
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Sorry. Not worth engaging this argument any further. Spilt milk and all that.
You’re happy with Trimble’s decisions — we’re not. Nothing changes either way.
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I never said I was happy or unhappy with Trimble’s decisions. I’m actually here to understand why those that are unhappy are… And in a few cases dispel some preconceived notions people have that are factually false. If we can get all of the facts straight we can have a real discussion about why people care about this so much.
I’d also like to hear from people that ARE happy with the new pricing model, although I suspect very few who are will flock to the forums to say so.
PS you deleted your post calling me disingenuous… why?
And again, just to put a period on it I’m not trying to stir anything up. I’m really trying to figure out what people want here. SketchUp is actually pretty late to the subscription game. I’m personally really surprised at the reaction here, and one last time, just to make the point loud and clear: Just trying to really deeply understand why.
Yes ! Uploading on a Trimble service that may keep your data and work !
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Eric, I’m not surprised about the reaction. I heard around me, and I listen on several forums.
You can see on his profile that db11 is a pro customer
also, many countries like mine don’t have proper internet, so upload speed is like 0.5Mbps. Uploading files with hundreds of MB is NOT an option for me.
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So use the Desktop version? That comes with the subscription… It’s offline. (save for the occasional license check-in which requires VERY little bandwidth.)
Again, you have a choise, you can see it as a backup of your files, but that’s up to you. You can also look at it as a File-converter (upload a model, edit it online, then download it again to tour machine and delete the project in the cloud). You can even delete your Trimble ID and be gone, create a nee when needed and be anonymous.