Has anyone switched to subscription and regretted it?

[Anonymous]

My perpetual license is up for renewal this month and the cost has now gone up to $750.00. The offer to change to subscription is $1755 for 3 years. I would much prefer to keep my perpetual license because I paid almost $4000.00 for it (before all the yearly maintenance fees) and think it is wrong that I have to just forfeit this to move to subscription. Seems like extortion to me, and I have absolutely no need for any of the "benefits" that come with the subscription. But they are making the price so high, that it starts to become tougher and tougher not to switch, which I'm sure is their intent.

I was also told by my reseller that Autodesk does have plans to no longer offer perpetual license renewals each year and are just going to stop soon. I don't know how true that is or if they legally can do it, but I guess it's possible.

So my question is has anyone been forced (due to price) to forfeit their perpetual license and regretted it? It would be a no-brainer if they didn't make you "turn in" your perpetual license. I feel as though I have paid for this and should be able to use it as long as I wish. I don't doubt that the EULA somehow words it that you are always just "renting" it, but that's not how most people see it when they purchase $4000.00 software. For example, if you have a copy of MS Office on a cd from before they went to subscription, it still works. You can even install it on a new computer. True you cannot get updates, but it still works in its present form. Evidently my copy of ACAD 2020 will no longer be a valid license once I switch. From what I understand, once I switch, I will never be able to reinstall my copy of 2020 should my hard drive die. It may even be possible that it stops working, but I am unsure of that.

Any thoughts from anyone who has actually done it and regretted it?

[pendean]

regret? Have you ever rented anything in your life? It's basically the same thing, rental=subscription. How do you feel about renting? Did you forget you never actually own what you rent?

IMHO you either benefit from the software, or you need to go find something else from someone else, regardless of what the process of acquiring it is (purchase or rental or your stuck-in-the-middle option). Most of us use the cost as our guideline, do we generate enough billings to justify it, or is it time to go find something more affordable for out accounts receivables.

Go talk to your accountant (or get one if you do not): you two should be able to answer your affordability questions that best serve your business plan and needs.

HTH

[Anonymous]

Here we go...as usual, a useless snarky response. Of course I have rented in my life. But I never bought something and then decided to rent the same thing instead. The title and last sentence of my original post sum up what I am looking for. There are many out there like myself who have been reluctant to give up their perpetual license, and those are the people I would like to hear from. If I am the last one on this planet that still has a perpetual license and pays yearly maintenance, then I guess I'm on my own. But I doubt that is the case.

[pendean]

Snarky? Just making you look inward to figure out if this is truly an option for you or not, giving you the tools to help yourself instead of relying on mass hysteria 🙂

Does the expenditure look affordable (either way)? Can your business income justify either scenario? Are you close to retirement or still have decades to go int he business? Is it time for a merger with others, or work for someone else bigger?

>>>..But I never bought something and then decided to rent the same thing instead...<<<
Exactly: that's a bridge you alone need to decide to cross, with your accountant, why would anyone not regret having to rent what they thought they owned?

Oh, and you've never owned your software my friend: perpetual licenses at Autodesk are expiring left and right and after you stop paying Autodesk you'll probably have 3+years before yours chokes too.

HTH

[parkr4st]

you need talk to your reseller.  I bought a license for Map3D, swapped to subscription, there has been no improvements in the portions of the Map3D now infrastructure that I would make use of, so now can use my 2019 so long as I want to but without any of the other subscriptions benefits such as tech help which is minimal for Map3D anyway. 

So I have a lifetime use rent until Autocad backs out of the deal then I can either pay up or drop using it which I definitely will do as I will retire before many more years and not need the license and then I can use other GIS software that is free such as QGIS.

And it is all about the economics.  $1700 USD for three years 2000 work hours per year 0.28 USD per hour.  Cheap enough compared to my old Koh-i-nor pen set which I would send to you if you want to go that route.

Dave

[Anonymous]

That's interesting regarding maps because I was told by my reseller that once I switch to subscription, I have to forfeit my perp. license. I still have a way to go to retirement and my concern is that they keep raising the subscription price until it becomes unaffordable. Once you can't afford the subscription and have forfeited you PL, you have nothing at all. With my PL, if it becomes completely unaffordable for some reason, I can just stop paying and keep using my current version for as long as I want. That last part is the part that I am reluctant to give up.

[Anonymous]

This is from the Autodesk web site and it seems to agree with what my reseller told me.

So if for some reason I ever no longer want to keep paying for the subscription, my original PL no longer works and I am left with nothing.

[Ed__Jobe]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So if for some reason I ever no longer want to keep paying for the subscription, my original PL no longer works and I am left with nothing.

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As Dean mentioned, you can't count on using your pl indefinitely even if you keep it. For example, as of a few months ago, you can't use any version older than 2010. It isn't economically viable for Autodesk to maintain licensing past a certain date. Right now that date is set at 2010, but they could change that at any time. The only thing they guarantee is the current version plus 3 versions back. So its not as big of a security blanket as you might think.

[pendean]

I suspect the salesperson for @parkr4st was aiming to make a sale, not win a customer.

Autodesk has started to implement the slow process of only allowing current plus 3-versions back to remain active: 2010 and older activations were killed off last August, 2016 and older activations start to die March 2021, then after that is starts to get ugly as we can all imagine.

Autodesk is going to make it hard for any customer to stop paying: your options are dwindling by the year.

[Anonymous]

Just waiting for Microsoft to decide they can get away with doing this with Windows.....the way the world is moving unfortunately. Looking at the product life-cycles for Office, it looks like perpetual licensing is likely to go away in a few years for that as well (both 2016 & 2019 hit end-of-support in October of 2025-no more 10-year life-cycle, looks like handwriting on the wall to me)

[pendean]

They kind of already do it with their MSOffice/Outlook offerings, they just haven't cut the cord quite yet on the non-business end.