yep they did because bigger people were abusing the system and not actually paying for it but making in some cases 500K to a million a year. so they pulled back anything to slow people down and force them to buy into it to "unlock" features. same as the 4th and 5th axis features is additional on top of a regular subscription.
many hobby guys were using it on there wood routers and hobby sized machines(unmentionable here)
others were just poking around to see if it would work for them on one or 2 parts without spending hundreds for something they didn't need fully.
the software is like the new haas controllers and allows people to dip there feet into it without drowning in debt and making it user friendly(kinda) to newcomers.
I cannot disagree with that decision.
Cripple the output for tool change is very discouraging for a time is money business. Bit still slows for learning all of the cycles. Methods, cad…. And let’s joe hobby still have a powerful program to use.
I was and still am very pissed about moving the 4,5th being stolen from me and moved to another paid teir when I had 2 more years on my subscription pre paid that included those cycles. That’s straight up theft.
I worked them for months and they gave me one year of the better package as compensation. Time wasted and I’m still out I’ve year for cycles I paid for. NOT COOL AUTODESK.
And if I had not bitched loudly it would have been stolen with no blink of an eye on their part.
They are still a good value. Bit I have far less trust of them now. If I was bigger I certainly would consider a move to separate myself from the cloud based “we changed the services we offer” on a whim.
Cool that it’s evolving, but there is something to be said for owning the script on your own server.
I’m still a customer but no longer a loud advocate for them
