Please, Autodesk, don't limit the personal licenses!!

[ellie.def]

It seems that Autodesk is wanting to severely limit the featureset of the personal license of Fusion360.

First of all, Why? Just Why would you do that, Autodesk, one of the biggest reasons Fusion was so popular is because it offered professional level performance and tools (without being too pro either) at a very limited cost, or even free, to anyone that needed it.

Second, while the edu and personal licenses do not allow for commercial use, the companies that use it commercially will have the startup version, and will pay for it, but there are so many reasons people use the personal license non-commercially, with fabrication tools being so accessible to everybody, especially personal users, it's only logical to use fusion on a cnc router at home, or for 3D printing at home, without ever selling anything.

FYI: I have an edu license, so I'm not affected by that change, but for the people that are, it's just unfair.

The personal license is already limited compared to the other licenses, so please, Autodesk, please don't be stupid and leave it as is. If anything, you should even allow collaboration with personal licenses, and if there has to be a price to pay, it should me extremely minimal, like 5 bucks a month, with the full startup price enabling commercial use.

If I only get replies from the autodesk team it's not gonna be a very productive post, so feel free to participate and help the personal license keep its functionalities.

[TheCADWhisperer]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

.... with no local storage options ...

---

File>Export of *.f3d = unlimited local storage.

[kal_joseph.edly]

I have a hobby license for personal use and I'm a paid subscriber at work. This is pretty disappointing to see. Removing or limiting access to some of the features I can understand, but straight up handicapping users with the ten project limit and removal of the ability to export STEP files is pretty ridiculous. I hope someone at Autodesk reconsiders this. 

[Anonymous]

You know, as a thought - Perhaps there's some middle ground here?  I mean, I obviously understand that there is operating and development costs for a program like this, and they need to monetize it.  But for most home-shop users, the full version is both much more capability than required, and far too expensive to be practical. 

How about a half-way option - A $50 a year subscription that retains the basic functionality that I suspect most of us use.  Larger assemblies, common file type exports, etc, but removes the simulation and other "advanced" features that I doubt most of your home-shop and personal users will be running.  I would be more than willing to pay a price I can afford to keep my basic functionality intact, I like and use this program a lot, but I simply can't afford a $400-a-year price tag for 95% of stuff I'll never use at all.

[jimskeet2002]

Wow...

Just found out about it and basically it destroys free usage of the software...

10 Documents active....

No export to step or iges....

This is literally the end of free usage of the software.

[justinjmarple]

Seeing Fusion 360 go down this path has been incredibly discouraging.  I used to really brag about how great Fusion was at work, but with the hobbyist->personal license nerf and now this..  yeah nah I don't think I can anymore.  

As far as I'm concerned, removing .step and .dxf might as well make the software useless.  Sigh. 

[holger_t]

Of course Autodesk paid its developers and Fusion360 was never "free". However, until now it has been a win-win situation. After all, the community has made a significant contribution to making the software much more error-free through a large number of error reports. Or bringing in new ideas from the community has made Fusion360 more user-friendly.
Now that the software has reached a certain level of maturity, AutoDesk no longer needs the users and is dropping them - at least that's what it seems to me.

[ellie.def]

that's the way I've seen it too, but what we have to try to do is convince them not to do that and keep their users on their software. It's not nice of them to exclude the users that helped them grow. If it costs too much to maintain their servers for storage and compute (it doesn't), just borrow money from inventor and autocad, these are extremely expensive and autodesk must be able to move some of that money to fusion's servers. If not, that's their personal problem, and they should fix it, the customer shouldn't have to compensate for the company's problems, even if the product is free.

[nicholasryabchuk]

Honestly they are are big company and have no reason to give a **** about us, I think it's time to move to something else

[vladovg]

Same situation here. We all changed our workflow to fusion 360 now i guess is time to change it again.

[Anonymous]

Well, I mean, it's NOT free to make and support this stuff, so I can see reason for needing to monetize it a bit.  This just feels... kinda extreme?  Like, this is pretty much just death for anyone that uses the software for anything more than the occasional creative model to export as a single-part to 3D printing.

[ellie.def]

well they should worry about keeping a substantial part of their users, even if not everybody pays for the program, because that's how the program became so popular, and the community keeps growing, and many new users will take the paid option, so the only reason they have to let go of the personal license users is stupid.

[YoavFriedlander]

I see a lot of comments here. And I understand the frustration of so many. But I have a suggestion, and please be gentle with me, what if there was another tier, something that adds those very critical functionalities that will be missing that would cost $9.99 a month? 120 a year... Would that be fair? 

I do understand how people get mad at something that was offered for free, and it still does to some extent, the STEP file issue is a specific decision that has pros and cons - If you truly believe this is the primary software you should be able to do everything within it so why would you need a STEP file export as a hobbyist - while the hobbyist will say they like to combine multiple tools etc. 

This can go on FOREVER - I believe that the pressure from the hobbyist should be directed in a way they can win! - Autodesk needs a model that turns profit, since it is a cloud software the burden on the servers is big and demanding... I am not sure it was a sustainable model and it also grew in size with the features it offers. 

I think that there is a room to fight for more tiers and still pay a symbolic amount for use of some features of the software

[Zackkushion]

I've used Fusion 360 as a hobbyist for a few years now, making random projects for myself to 3D print and improve upon my skills. Seeing that Fusion 360 is my favorite software to model in it feels like I've been kicked in the jaw for learning everything I know now when I won't be able to use some of that knowledge in the future when I know I'll use it or need it.

I personally don't have enough time to fully need/want a subscription to Fusion 360 nor do I have the money which is why I very much like the hobbyist subscription. I've never found a software with as many tools as Fusion 360 or as many options as Fusion 360 and now all of a sudden that's going to change and I believe it will only hurt the program and it's community.

[Anonymous]

I most definitely agree, that is what I have proposed as well, a $10/$100 model to keep the existing functionality for home users, a level of subscription that I could afford to continue using.  I would have no problem at all paying that, I am entirely willing to pay to support software I use.

I just can't afford a *commercial level license* for my home shop, it's just not practical.  Especially when that comes mostly full of features I'll never use.

[ellie.def]

Of course, it'd be ideal if they didn't change anything, and if that's not a sustainable model, it means they've been running at a loss (which is illegal/unfair). If they want to make it a paid subscription to keep it the same as before, sure, I'm all for it too, but it has to stay extremely reasonable, 10$ a month is already too much. To give an idea of price, Solidworks student edition is 100$ (or €) a year, Fusion has to be less expensive than that, so 5$ a month is what I'd be prepared to pay if I was using the personal license.

[TheCADWhisperer]

---

@ellie.def wrote:

1. ... just borrow money from inventor and autocad, 

2. ...even if the product is free.

---

1. Yes, that's the ticket.  Get someone else to pay.  Those customers must be rich to be using flagship products.  Let's run this idea by them...

2. Never was free.  Somebody was paying the costs (Economics 101). (My guess is the AutoCAD and Inventor customers.  Nothing wrong with that, I've worked in R&D where established products paid for the development of next-generation products.  But at some point the new baby has to stand up on it's own, earn it's supper and add a bit extra.)

[knifacat]

These changes make Fusion 360 much less appealing to a hobbyist. It's hard to justify $50/mo+ on something you only do at weekends.

I always figured that the goal was to create a license path where a hobbyist starts out something on the personal license that ends up making money, so then they eventually end up paying for a legitimate commercial license. This squashes that path, somewhat because e.g., I'm already considering other options. Maybe I've lost a feature I really need now.

I would absolutely pay around the $10/mo mark though, sure. Doesn't need to be the whole feature set. But there's truly no way I'm paying $50/mo.

[Anonymous]

Do yourself all a favor and get a license to solid edge community (https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/plmapp/education/solid-edge/en_us/free-software/community) until Autodesk understands that some people just can justify 60€ a month for hobby stuff, and until there is a 10€ month version for home use with every feature that we need like step Export and I would also say full featured cam, Wich is needed in the open source community.

[jodom4]

Keep in mind that although File>Export will be disabled for DXF, you'll still be able to save sketches as DXF.

I understand these changes are frustrating for you and some other users, but in our research (which was extensive) we found that the vast majority of hobby users don’t export solid geometry- they export meshes for 3D printing- while solid geometry output is a critical feature for professional use. 

The 10 active design limit also won’t affect the vast majority of hobbyist users. We know there are exceptions, but again, the vast majority don’t even have 10 active designs at a given time. Professionals, on the other hand, usually have more than 10 active designs.

Again, the idea here is to optimize between professional and personal use while still having enough measures in place to prevent misuse or abuse, intentional or otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Maybe look at this

https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/plmapp/education/solid-edge/en_us/free-software/community