The perils of SaaS strike again. It used to be that you bought a license, and then the software was yours to use eternally thereafter with zero external dependencies.
When will the users learn that SaaS means the software can change at any time out of your control, up to and including not functioning at all, and you will not be able to do anything about it?
Or will their minds continue to be "clouded" by the corporate propaganda?
I think the question of why people will willingly "build on a shaky foundation" is appropriate, especially given the type of software this is.
This isn't even a SaaS. This is a desktop program with some bullshit inconvenient "save to the cloud" feature that would be better off missing (I have Nextcloud if I really need this, thanks Adobe), and various functionality crippling like removing the local simulation just to force people to rent cloud machines from them.
There are still many good old "offline" CAD programs, some of them points out permanent license as their selling point (Alibre Design, BricsCAD, VariCAD...). When it comes to simulation, there are also many others. I usually use FreeCAD to run simple FEM analysis (it has more possibilities than Solidworks SimulationXpress)
Many Fusion users have switched to alternative CAD programs in last year or two. Many of them started using Alibre products, which have quite good pricing (Atom is great choice for hobby users/small workshops). Too bad it's Windows only (like almost all CAD programs). But I think FreeCAD also increased their user-base, which will hopefully help them grow (like Blender). It's really great software, but still missing some features needed for (more) professional work.
It's hard for companies to move to another CAD software, but some companies are really pushing their users away :D
Yes indeed, we had connected all our invoicing to a company handling sending bills and receiving money. The support was getting worse and worse but it would cost too much to rewrite the code that interfaced with their special API's. One day they had a new API that was even worse to use and announced EOL for the old API in a couple of months. Suddenly the cost calculation was completely different and we could finaly change to a better company with better support. Turns out the new one was much easier to interface with and it was even cheaper than the old one. We really needed that push to change!
Anyone who is selling APIs needs to realize this will almost certainly happen when you turn off the old one - those people haven't upgraded to your latest for a reason, and if upgrading is hard enough they'll re-evaluate the whole deal.
I'm not sure BricsCAD or VeriCAD are really competing with Fusion and I wouldn't describe FreeCAD as "good" unfortunately.
The main competition is SOLIDWORKS. There's also Pro/E (or Creo or whatever) and NX. I haven't come across Alibre before though - that looks interesting.
What's the other option for users if there isn't a comparable alternative? I think most users dislike paying for a membership over buying the product outright, but that doesn't mean it can be changed
When will the users learn that SaaS means the software can change at any time out of your control, up to and including not functioning at all, and you will not be able to do anything about it?
Or will their minds continue to be "clouded" by the corporate propaganda?
I think the question of why people will willingly "build on a shaky foundation" is appropriate, especially given the type of software this is.