Suggestion - Hobby License

Guess I have to decide how much my “hobby/fun” is worth. :smiley:

Kind of sorry I ever started this thread on this forum. :disappointed:

Your topic invite opinions and you’ve gotten a bunch of them. Of course not everyone will share your opinion.

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Time and patience is what is most required. Extensions only provide shortcuts.

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You should see how much I spend on paragliding… sometimes one weekend (just the travel, lift tickets, etc) cost 1/2 as much as my SketchUp subscription.

But I love it, so I find ways to keep doing it.

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Only 1/2 of your subscription! Did you really mean your subscription is 1/2 the amount of your weekend? :grin:

No, I think I’d be in trouble then.

4 posts were split to a new topic: How to draw windows in rounded walls using only native tools

If extensions were possible in the Web/Free version, then trimble could offer them for a fee, same as the App Store or Play Store.

A package of the most popular extension tools sold for $50/year, and designed to work in Web.
LayOut could be included for another $50, perhaps.

Or do a monthly fee offer for Pro.

I have been a Pro subscriber on and off since 2006. I have to cancel now because I simply can’t afford it. It is my most expensive hobby, photography included, and I don’t spend enough time on it any more to justify. I will continue to use the free web app for 3d models and such, but I lament the ability to use a desktop system. (Yes, I do have 2017 available)

One thing I will say in favor of the web version is that I can use it under Linux, my standard desktop, without having to reboot into Windows. But it is painful to use sometimes, even with a gigabit internet connection, on any model with significant size or detail.

I would 100% support a less expensive desktop version without Layout or other commercial features.

You can continue to use all of the SketchUp versions you have used before the subscription period started…

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You can continue to use all of the SketchUp versions you have used before the subscription period started…

wow, I was not aware of that - different subscription model from e.g. Adobe products. Thank you for this pointer.

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no, it’s the same :slight_smile:

you said you were a SUpro user before 2021 and the subscription, it means you had some classic licences back then.
Meaning you can still re-install SU21 or prior with your classic licences. If you didn’t have a classic licence back then, then by stopping your subscription, you loose the access to SU pro

same with adobe, I got colleagues still using their CS5 they bought 15 years ago. Older classic licences are not linked to having a subscription.

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Here’s one. Photoshop 4 (sometime in the 1990s) already did all that I need from an image editing application.

Gimp and Krita are great image manipulation programs and they’re open source.

Yes. And the Affinity suite is good too, relatively low-cost, and a permanent license. But I am still quite happy with CS5.

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You said it all!!! That’s exactly the case. I’m from Brazil for instance. Paying 350,00 dollars for those who earn in dollar is one thing. Paying the correspondent to 350,00 dollars earning in reals is something else completely different!!

Alas, that’s a problem with global economics. Trimble is a US company, most of its employees and a large portion of its shareholders are Americans. They too couldn’t afford to operate if they had to provide pricing that each locale could afford.

This is an interesting discussion.

Reading over it again, there is something I’m missing. It seems as if here there are all sorts of stake holders at loggerheads with each other.

There are many volunteers over here too, though. A number of them that take care of the forum without thinking too much about themselves, there are people who make beautifull complex plugins, for free. There are people who are very willing to teach others.

So what’s a volunteer? Is he some one who only wants to represent his or her stake holdership, or is it maybe someone who want’s to do something for the whole community.

I’m sure Sketchup has lost a large userbase among hobbyists, maybe for good reason, as professionals took advantage of it.

On the other hand, projects such as Gimp, Blender (maybe not the best example in this context) or, say, Wikipedia manage to provide beautiful examples of nice free stuff for huge crowds by smart thinking (best bang for bucks, keeping overheads low). Not to mention for the third world.

I’m all in for providing hobbyists a very neat package of SU, maybe without the option to use paid plugins, limited export options and such. In return I’m sure you’ll receive a much more engaged user base.

That’s what SketchUp free for web was supposed to be, I think. But I think the theme here is equivalent to the occasional handyman who rents a tool for the limited time he needs it rather than buying one.

That’s what Googles Free version was, untill professionals discovered how they could take advantage of it. This is what makes it complex when you try to build something for a larger community.

The way I use Sketchup-free-for-the-web is I deliver my SKP file to the client with instructions how to explore it with that piece of software.