You know, I'm sure the 'keep paying for software indefinitely' model makes sense to the owners of that software in some boardroom meeting, but as a small business owner it does not now and never will make sense for me. I will never enter into a subscription model for software. Ever.
Eagle used to be the package of choice for those starting out, with a modest and reasonable business model I could support.
You really expect me to pay $5000 over 10 years for the professional version of your software? And just keep on paying? It's not going to happen.
And yes the open source KiCAD is now at a point where it offers a great and very powerful feature set, is incredibly easy to use, is cross platform and really offers all the advantages that Eagle used to offer. It provides a great way to break this cycle.
When corporate greed and bean counters come together to lean on small business owners, the small business owners can push right back.
http://kicad-pcb.org/
Here's a link which may help someone else making this transition.
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/27/eagle-to-kicad-made-easy/
Yes I will continue to use my existing EAGLE license to maintain projects. But that's it.
Adios EAGLE.