[kstrauss]

For forgotten reasons I paid$100 for a 2-year Fusion 360 licence almost two years ago. I got the following email today:

T

here are some upcoming changes to Fusion 360 that will excite you!

Starting October 7th, 2018, we're enhancing Fusion 360 to include all functionality that is currently in Fusion 360 Ultimate.

As a thank you for being a loyal customer, not only will your current subscription price remain at the discounted rate of $310 USD* (as long as you renew), but you’ll also get access to more functionality that includes:
• Generative design technology – explore thousands of design alternatives and choose the one that best fits your needs
• Advanced manufacturing functionality – 3+2, 4 & 5-axis machining and probing
• Advanced simulation functionality – nonlinear stress, shape optimization, buckling, and event simulation
For more information regarding the upcoming changes and answers to FAQs see here.

Thanks again for subscribing to Fusion 360. Let me know if you have any questions.

[RA-Bowtie]

G'day Ken,

I kinda makes VCarve look pretty average, doesn't it?

Michael

[GLCarlson]

Wonder what this will do to the 'hobby' license/non-license?

[rcheli]

I noticed an alert in Fusion that my subscription (hobby) was ending and was able to just update the subscription a day or two ago.

[dharmic]

Yeah same. And the hobby / startup licence is for Ultimate anyway. I think the only thing we don't get is generative design.

[ger21]

They are just trying to get more money from the people that are actually paying for it.

I locked in to "Ultimate" for $300/year for life. $1000 later, I don't really have anything more than the people using it for free.

[Advil]

They're pretty up front about it in their current license agreements. Unless you are grossing $100k per year or more they don't "care" if you pay full rate. It seems sensible to me frankly. If I ever get to 100k I'll GLADLY pay them their $300 per 2 years or whatever. It would really be nice however to have a custom donation subscription. I'm sure more than a few of us even as skinflint hobbyists would like to be able to select $20-50-75-100 per year or something. We do get INSANE value out of this thing. Give us some options to support! It might also make it so that their regular sub price doesn't have to be quite as high.

[ger21]

Got an email last night, that they are raising their prices. I think they are combining standard and ultimate, and the new price will be $475/year. This goes into effect October 7th, according to the email.

[cyclestart]

As I read the notice from Autodesk:
#1) Existing annual regular license Ultimate subscribers get a free 24 month extension.
#2) Existing annual early adopter Ultimate subscribers continue paying $300 (or $310).

That's how I read the new terms but look for yourself:
https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/f...60-one-product

As an paying early adopter who qualifies for hobby license it's number #2 above that burns a bit. Has anyone here switched from paying subscriber
to hobby license ? I fear it may not go smoothly with this being a cloud app.

[David C. Allen]

Hello cyclestart
I changed from a annual early adopter at $300 to a hobby license in December of 2017. It was very easy, no data was lost.

David

[ger21]

As an paying early adopter who qualifies for hobby license it's number #2 above that burns a bit.

They left that part out of the email.

[skrubol]

Early adopters still get 1000 cloud credits/yr as well from what I read (as well as access to generative.)
Are cloud credits really $1 each?
I'll probably never make enough to not be eligible for the hobbyist license.. and probably never use my cloud credit hoard either..

[shred]

As someone that paid for the 'regular' Fusion360, it was annoying that the first paid-for tier got less functionality than the free 'hobby/startup' tier and got nothing else of value for the money.

I'm not a fan of $300/year, but at least fixing the functionality levels might be worth it if the 4th axis machining is any good.

[Steve Seebold]

I’ll stick with the $18K software I use now thank you very much. Besides, I’m too old to try to learn a new CAM software.

[dharmic]

If I had a perpetual licence for Catia, Creo, NX or even Inventor, Solidworks etc I'd probably stick with that, too. This ongoing subscription model rubs me the wrong way as does cloud based stuff.

But I don't have a perpetual licence for any of those and Autodesk offers a pretty good price (well, free for now) for what you get.

And I've seen guys get caught by the perpetual licence before - they sit on one version, not paying the upgrade fee every year or two when the next one comes out. Then one day their computer dies. Oh, sorry, can't buy anything that looks like that hardware anymore and the most recent OS that your licensed version will run on won't run on new hardware. No problems, says the CAD company - just pay all the upgrade fees since your version to get to the latest. Or chuck it and buy a new version.

[vmax549]

This SHOULD not be a surprise to anyone as much as you were warned about how Autodesk does business. It has been this way as far back as I can remember dealing with Autodesk. They get you hooked on features YOU helped develop THEN they yank them away from you and MAKE you pay for them if you want to use them. AND before you say anything My wife and I have been Autodesk users sense Autocad came on 3 floppy discs. After we both retired from using it our bank account is much fatter now.

SO now IF you want to play you have to PAY $$$ and it WILL get worse and never better.

(;-) TP

[ger21]

They get you hooked on features YOU helped develop THEN they yank them away from you and MAKE you pay for them if you want to use them.

They didn't do that at all.

If you were using it for free, it's still free.

If you were paying $300 year, it's still $300.

If you were paying $1500 a year, it's now only $495, and you get two years for free.

[dharmic]

True for now.

But I’ll admit, every time I use it I feel like that kid at high school getting his free first joint... and I’m always waiting for the other foot to drop.

[cyclestart]

Hello cyclestart
I changed from a annual early adopter at $300 to a hobby license in December of 2017. It was very easy, no data was lost.

Thanks for that David.
$300 annual is still a great deal imo, so it's decision time before Autodesk taps the credit card again.

[shred]

Hands up everyone that remembers Alibre's Free-3d-CAD-For-Life offer?

Autodesk knew they were far far behind in parametric 3D CAD and the Fusion business model was a way to get a huge leg up without killing AutoCAD completely, but now they are there they don't need to buy market share anymore....