Changes to Fusion 360 Personal License - STEP is BACK & My Thoughts

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Fusion 360 Blog post:

[karlosss]

I.m a hobbyist. I love fusion & fully appreciate why these changes have been made. I'm so thankful this poduct is still available for free for the hobyist. Thankyou.

[glenlemke]

Thanks Lars and Fusion 360. I am amazed that a program this powerful has a free version in the first place. I also appreciate all your free tutorials.

[joninct]

I still think Fusion 360 is a fantastic deal. I am chronically ill on disability and love this program. Autodesk has to protect its business and these 'restrictions' really don't affect me too much. I am grateful for having had a great experience and also grateful to Lars for his tutorials. Thank you.

[mathumphreys]

Fusion360 with these changes is still workable (at the moment), but that's not the point. The main issue I have is that this is a step in a direction I don't want to go. I (and other users) invest a lot of time becoming proficient with a piece of software and now I don't feel that I can trust F360 in the future. I'd prefer to invest my time with something that will grow, not degrade. I'm glad I've invested most of my time in FreeCAD, but I'm sad that this is happening to F360.

[IQWorkshop]

As a personal user of F360 I would like to thank Lars and Steve for this video. It was something that they didn't need to do, but reaching out to the community in this way goes some way in resolving the concerns that there are out there.

I chose F360 as a design solution as it touches all 3 workflows I am interested as a maker (3D printing, Laser Cutting and CNC). The time I have spent learning this tool has been an investment from my side and it's good to hear Lars call this out and recognise this!

Due to the quality of the communications, I too was worried about how I would work on my pet projects. As a result I decided to explore other CAD options, specifically FreeCAD. After using this application for a short time, it became immediately obvious the amount of hard work the design team and programmers at Autodesk had put in to make the tools easy to understand and use. Something that I took for granted! I will continue to use FreeCAD alongside F360 to broaden my horizons
, however F360 will remain my daily driver for all of my projects for the foreseeable future.

To Autodesk, thank you for creating an awesome tool and making it available to the maker community - never forget, today's young personal users are tomorrows commercial engineers
To Lars, thank you for this video and all that have gone before. I would not be working on the projects I do without the time invested on your part!

Hopefully this relationship with the maker community and Autodesk F360 continues long into the future.

[speediroc]

when I got my 3D printer it was suggested to me by numerous people to get the personal version of fusion. I did and when I asked for some good video's on how to use it your name came up instantly and consistently. I'm having a great time watching your video's and modeling the things you have.

[thetransformatorium]

I really loved Fusion 360, and I was an avid champion for it. I told all my buddies about it. I really appreciated them letting a startup/ hobby guy like me have access to such powerful software, and I totally intended to buy the software when I could afford to. Then these mental defectives took away RAPIDS!!!! Are you kidding me? Guess what, I don't reward Extortion! This is NOT the way to do this! Pissing me off is NOT how you get me to spend money on your product. This sort of corporate behavior is what I expect from Bill Gates, not you guys. But I guess you don't need us little guys anymore after we helped you beta test and refine your product to the point that it actually could compete with the other software out there. Now I will never buy F360 because I WILL NOT reward this kind of behavior. You guys screwed the pooch on this. Tootles..

[JT-eijf]

Thanks for everything Lars. It was great to learn Fusion with your help over the years. Build a Cnc Mill for my private projekts and started with 3d printing. Im learning now FreeCad. Goodbye Autodesk

[TheSpeedGeek]

IMO, Mr. Hooper came across as genuine and believable with a perfectly reasonable argument for the new rules. Autodesk is a business not a charity and I certainly am grateful for free access to such a useful tool. The new restrictions are not showstoppers for us hobbyists. And when you think about it, zero dollars is a pretty low price.

[roomtemp]

I can see them having restrictions in the free license. The thing is, they should have been in place from the beginning. To give somebody something only to take it away later is guaranteed to illicit a negative reaction from anyone. It's just human nature. The proper path would have been to release new must have shiny things in the commercial version to entice an upgrade. How could their marketing dept. not know this?

I've never been a fan of cloud software or subscription models that can alter your agreement on a whim. This incident just reinforces those feelings. His line about 'protecting' makers and hobbyists is pure bovine excrement. And if people were abusing the license it should be easy enough to tell since it's all running on their cloud.

Thanks for making the excellent instructional videos Lars. They're great for grasping cad concepts generally even if you're not using fusion.

[mickemoe]

Ive been using all known Cad systems for the last 25 years in my work. Since I am a senior consulting engineer, working in Europe and USA, and sometimes consult at my customer using my customers Cad I dont use my Solidworks license so I put my annual service fee of $2600 on hold. When I wanted to restart my service fee and add SolidWorks CAM, they wanted $2600 times 3 plus $2600 plus the CAM license!
So in comparison Fusion360 is priceworthy! I dont change my opinion easily but now I am running Fusion 360!
Besides I do not understand at all the complaints for the fusion team wanting something back for all their work for years with free educational videos and tips etc.
I feel nothing but gratitude for this Fusion Crew developing a system that makes my life easier!!!

[Dsr]

Guess it's time to say goodbye to autodesk. I cant pay 400 a year for a hobby.

[SimonRileyMaker]

Here are my 2 cents. My personal concern now is that, at some point in the future, an important part of F360 that I use will be turned off and I will be told I have to pay for it. I dont' know what will be turned off (nerfed, whatever you want to call it), I don't know much I will have to pay and I don't know if I will be able to afford it. I'm already a paying customer, but I don't want to be in a place where I feel like all of my designs are hidden on Autodesk servers and I'll be held to ransom at some point in the future.

I love the product and am prepared to pay for it, but the way this has been done, has made me very nervous, to the point of looking at other options.

[fredericvieren]

I'm a hobbyist and a Huge fan of Fusion 360. Thanks Lars for your great videos.
I think finding out those "fake hobbyists" might not be an issue, based on simple activity monitoring.
I also think Autodesk just gave the hobbyist community the best possible motivation to consider learning FreeCad and contribute to its improvement.
Because FreeCad still has simulation, unrestricted CAM and other features that you guys are removing.
Some people are already posting videos on moving to FreeCad from Fusion.
I just finished building my desk CNC when this thing is Happening.
I think I will continue to use F360 but I'm going to learn CAM in FreeCad.

[davematthews]

Thank you. My take on it is that a lot of people were acting like entitled jerks. I am a retired software developer and software project manager that worked in that tall black tower in the city just east of where you live. I read that blog posting when it came out and found it to be very clear - and I understood it to say what you just said. People need to learn how to read. They also need to understand just how much it takes to produce and support a complex piece of software.

I have a 3d printer and a home built CNC (Gatton CNC). If it takes me 10 minutes longer to make my parts it is not a big deal. I think the most complicated design (spinning wheel) had about 15 parts that I designed in F360 and cut on the Gatton. I am grateful that Autodesk allows me to use Fusion 360 for free.

[lukasborkovec]

Thank You, You Opened my eyes.

I just realised what is the value of having data in your own PC and not having them in cloud subjected to somebody else will to grant you an access. Today they say this or that or charge you "only" that, what about tomorrow, ??? 40%off ?? This guy might change with next CEO.

Thank you Autocad giving me the valuable lesson of not reling on anybody
storing my data with anyone else. I have learned not to rely (however its for free!!!) on product that I cannot control let alone access. ( I need internet connection to Fussion 360 to export data out) I only found yesterday.

Thank you Fusion 360 to open my eyes!!! I was naive.

[GastonSWE]

Autodesk is wagering the trust they have built up over many years with the maker community. Autodesk management has obviously made some executive decisions without consulting application engineers for all fields of usage. I assume that the internal damage within Autodesk and Fusion 360 Team will take years to mend. From my personal hobbyist perspective the changes looks stupid and rash and will cause Autodesk a lot of internal and external friction. I understand that cloud services cannot work without costs, so lock us out and enforce only local file storage, but give us a a couple of months to download files before locking us out. Sorry the comment is so negative, keep up the good work Lars!

[IanJohnstonblog]

You Sir, are a class act. Very good video, highlighting the good, and the bad.

I’m happy to see that Autodesk have fixed the colossally stupid idea to eliminate export of STEP models. How that idea ever got approved to begin with is shocking in and of itself. Trust was shattered... it will take a lot of time to repair that mistake.

It was fixed immediately, but it shouldn’t take a public outcry for Autodesk to wake up and realize how stupid that was.

Thank you for this video. I have gained so much knowledge from you, and your exceptional tutorials. I can’t thank you enough for all your hard work.

[Sneakydecoy]

I would gladly pay 10-15$ a month for a somewhat restrictive license, but a commercial one that has features I would never use (like generative design, cam and simulation), I'm not very interested in. Would Autodesk loose anything by offering a cheaper license to semi-pro/enthusiasts?

[ribicb]

This feels familiar. Like exchange between Darth Vader and Lando in empire strikes back: "I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any more", and "Are you complaining you are treated unfairly". No money spent but countless hours poured into learning F360, watching tutorials, trial and error... that itself is an investment. Original agreement was for hobbyists and startups making under $100K. Then the Empire altered the deal, only hobbyists. And then altered it again, now hobbyists have to use this hobbled version. And you are saying let's stick with F360, we should trust their word, Lord Vader will not alter the deal. So hobbyists can look at their track record and then decide where best to invest their time and effort. Bye.