though despite luchifer not specifying what he meant by "subscriptions" or "buying Autodesk",
I find it quite revealing about the apparent "disconnect",
as you both assumed he meant that he was looking to rent,
while classic options are technically still available,
and basically any thread anywhere on the subject,
(such as the link provided in the first post of this thread, and very much including this thread)
are almost completely unfavorable to new rental plans.
From one of these threads:
But not unlike all these changes, this change is also clearly not to the advantage of the customer/consumer, and really only benefit ADSKThey urged everyone to get onto subscription. They tout bonuses like being able to run a second copy on a laptop, or use legacy versions (*something that should be a given anyway*)
So people go on subscription, are then denied extensions because they weren't on a subscription for a creation suite sub (and then they killed one of the DCC apps that was in that suite)
-They ramped the upgrade cost to a flat rate,
-then up to costing 70% of a new seat,
-then they said, after May 2015 you won't be able to upgrade.
If you stop renting and move to another app, you lose the ability to access anything you've created with the rental software.
For the very few that argue -some- benefits of "buying" (as you say) into rental plans in -some- cases,
they are immediately disproved by the argument :
"fine (for those cases), but for more common scenarios, why -only- rental?"
Renting is 1.5 to a whopping 3 times the price(for basically nothing), more towards the 3X if you normally update only when needed, and in the event of subsequent increases (or basically any other undesired change), people would further be constrained by not being able to hold-off purchases, without essentially losing the ability to function.
Even if you would be allowed to chose to not update the software
(which would be more common than not in the middle of productions or whatnot)
you would stilll be paying the price of the very latest all the time (normally not very sound to do that),
... or use a shovel to do your excavation work.
Needless to say, in the pros and cons list, to date the "cons" have an overwhelming 10:1 ratio,
while Autodesk campaings, (and fully supportive (or endocronated) employees) talk as if it was all for the better, and/or from popular demand.
Or if I'm missing some great advantage, feel free to enlighten me.
