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Autodesk kicking the tires on removing future options based on license type.

g-coder05

Titanium
Joined
Mar 5, 2006
Location
Subic Bay
Just as Fusion 360 gets on a same level as BobCad they seem to want to find out the repercussions of turning off options. I was just reading the flyer that came out for October and the hobbyins version will be next to useless.

  • No non native file exports other than sketch DXF and useless STL.
  • Max 10 files at a time
  • drawing single sheet, Print only
  • No 4-5th axis
  • No mill turn
  • No rapid moves
  • No tool changes

I know this may sound lm bitching about a free software but that isn't the case at all. If Autodesk will do this to hobbyist who are learning, What's to stop them from jacking the price up and shutting off modules on a tiered basis? No way do I want to be held hostage by AD.

Changes to Fusion 360 for personal use | Fusion 360 | Autodesk Knowledge Network
 
Call me when they start pulling features from paid subscription tiers. If I recall correctly, they have never done that and have only been adding value for paying tiers over the years (going as far as to grandfather folks in absurdly low subscription prices).

Autodesk was (very likely) getting ripped off with the "Hobby" license being on the honor system. The two solution paths were either limit the hobby/education tier in the manner they have, or go through some invasive procedure to keep people honest. This is the better path - you can still work in Fusion, learn it inside/out, spit out 3D prints, 2D work, and some hobby grade milling for the high price of $0.

God damn, Autodesk is providing an absurd amount of value here. It isn't a charity, but the business model sure as hell delivers a boatload of utility at a crazy low price. Even so, it seems that the only thing people ever want to do is bitch about the price. What a lunatic set of whinging arguments.
 
Call me when they start pulling features from paid subscription tiers. If I recall correctly, they have never done that and have only been adding value for paying tiers over the years (going as far as to grandfather folks in absurdly low subscription prices).

Autodesk was (very likely) getting ripped off with the "Hobby" license being on the honor system. The two solution paths were either limit the hobby/education tier in the manner they have, or go through some invasive procedure to keep people honest. This is the better path - you can still work in Fusion, learn it inside/out, spit out 3D prints, 2D work, and some hobby grade milling for the high price of $0.

God damn, Autodesk is providing an absurd amount of value here. It isn't a charity, but the business model sure as hell delivers a boatload of utility at a crazy low price. Even so, it seems that the only thing people ever want to do is bitch about the price. What a lunatic set of whinging arguments.

Yeah, it's like they want money for the work they put into it. Crazy.
 
It's more like the first hit is free, and once you're hooked, you're theirs.

Kill your competitors, become a monopoly. Jeeze, that's always worked well for consumers, hasn't it?
 
Just as Fusion 360 gets on a same level as BobCad they seem to want to find out the repercussions of turning off options. I was just reading the flyer that came out for October and the hobbyins version will be next to useless.

  • No non native file exports other than sketch DXF and useless STL.
  • Max 10 files at a time
  • drawing single sheet, Print only
  • No 4-5th axis
  • No mill turn
  • No rapid moves
  • No tool changes

I know this may sound lm bitching about a free software but that isn't the case at all. If Autodesk will do this to hobbyist who are learning, What's to stop them from jacking the price up and shutting off modules on a tiered basis? No way do I want to be held hostage by AD.

Changes to Fusion 360 for personal use | Fusion 360 | Autodesk Knowledge Network


The 1st and last 2 seem like "what the actual fuck??"" Free or not, software seems worthless without even the basics. That said, does it not do it, or not post the proper code for it? I know (or used to) the Mastercam home learning had most/all features unlocked, but couldn't post any g code, and used a different file extension so you couldn't "swap" files with a real version...

@Gkoening, what good does learning that software do if you can't do any of the stuff that all other softwares do? Like a free car that has no wheels, and no way to install them.. :Ithankyou:

Weren't you the one who just recently said screw fusion and download and learn Mastercam and/or solidworks? If not, nevermind LoL :hole:
 
Well it's free and you get what you pay for!

Of course Autodesk wants to make money, and lot's of it. Fusion is there test bed and where they are placing a great deal of resources at. They want you on the Cloud so they can control your usage and someday that will probably be the only way to access their software, nothing new here. Since this is a machinist forum, mark my words, someday you will have to pay for every time you want to generate a usable post for your part, ie Cloud Credits!

Their grand design IMHO, is to make money on every single thing you design. If they are successful in their endeavor, others will follow suit. Just Sayin'
 
Then why are you even complaining about this?

Umm, Didn't complain. I just showcased what could happen when one falls for the "Cheap" idea of running a machine shop. If you're a fusion fan boy taking taking it in the tailpipe from AD and Titan to save a buck then best of luck to you.

I, as well as many here got the AD shafting with Featurecam and Delcam and learned they do not care if you produce or not. My point here was to show how easy it is for them to control your business.
 
If you ever have to telephone Autodesk Customer Service, they answer with "Good morning Customer Service, How can we shaft you"...
:D

Wait....you actually got them to answer the phone. Instead of an email say they might get back to you in a couple of years. The only autodesk product I've used has been Civil3D so maybe the fusion side is different?
 
I'm so glad when I come to these threads I don't have to worry about what they're doing anymore. We also switched to Esprit when it became clear they were leaving Featurecam for dead.

I think what OP is getting at is that Autodesk is already trying to set a lot of dangerous precedents for the industry, so it's easy to raise eyebrows when they do stuff like this. But pushing the cloud, individually registered licenses, a subscription based payment system, etc could all fuck a lot of people over if other companies start picking it up as well.

I have a subscription based license of Featurecam. It lapses at the end of the month as we decided to move on from it. It used to be that even if you went off maintenance, you could still use your old seat as much as you wanted, but now I'm pretty sure once this expires I will essentially be locked out of all my own featurecam files unless we pay up to restart the subscription again. Feels kinda like ransomware.

As it is I'm just going to reprogram all of those jobs in Esprit over time and be done with it, but we're a big company and I get paid to do that. I can't imagine doing this if I was a one man show.
 
Anyone who didn't seen this coming from the beginning hasn't been paying attention. It will get worse. When a company as ruthless as Autodesk offers something that's either "free" or priced too good to be true, run away.
 
I'm no fan boy. I fully understand what autodesk does/does not do well. That being said, I've got 1k into 2 years of ownership of fusion and it has allowed me to pay off over 100k of machine tool debts. It was not a possibility to start up my business AND buy into 10k+ software at the time.

To be honest, anyone that did not see autodesk eventually changing price/features is naive as heck. Of course they're going to slowly work their way to charge more as they develop the software. That is only common sense, especially when you compare prices to practically any other viable cam package.

Fusion/autodesk are a lot like Haas, Imo. (ie, there are "better"/more expensive options) Lots of people love to throw shade, but there are loads of shops laughing at the nay sayers all the way to the bank.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
I'm no fan boy. I fully understand what autodesk does/does not do well. That being said, I've got 1k into 2 years of ownership of fusion and it has allowed me to pay off over 100k of machine tool debts. It was not a possibility to start up my business AND buy into 10k+ software at the time.

To be honest, anyone that did not see autodesk eventually changing price/features is naive as heck. Of course they're going to slowly work their way to charge more as they develop the software. That is only common sense, especially when you compare prices to practically any other viable cam package.

Fusion/autodesk are a lot like Haas, Imo. (ie, there are "better"/more expensive options) Lots of people love to throw shade, but there are loads of shops laughing at the nay sayers all the way to the bank.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Ain't that the truth! We are a Haas shop and making money hand over fist. We do a fairly unique product line, which certainly contributes to that, but they are also tight tolerance parts (3-5 tenths on some) that run just fine on Haas machines. Just bought a new VF2ss, now we are trading in our older 2 vf2's for 2 more ss models. Also replacing all the tooling for those trades. I don't think anyone spends that kind of money if they aren't "rolling" in it.

I understand there are lots of MTB builders with better iron and stuff on their machines. Haas certainly doesn't work for everyone, but it does work for more than some people would have you believe.
 
I'm not surprised they see a bunch of drop off from this, basically makes the "starter" or Entreprenur or "student" version useless.

IDK how many have 8K to drop on master cam. and some people use it maybe once or twice a year and won't pay the $300 for it.
 
I, as well as many here got the AD shafting with Featurecam and Delcam and learned they do not care if you produce or not. My point here was to show how easy it is for them to control your business.

And this is what makes me super-wary of ever counting on them as a CAD-CAM provider. I don't like companies that change the rules at their whim.
 
I'm not surprised they see a bunch of drop off from this, basically makes the "starter" or Entreprenur or "student" version useless.

IDK how many have 8K to drop on master cam. and some people use it maybe once or twice a year and won't pay the $300 for it.

This change does not affect the student or startup licenses. It only affects the hobby license that was being commonly misused for commercial purposes.
 








 
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