Additional Payment Required for Physical Media for AutoCAD 2017

[JGA_o1]

I am gobsmacked that Autodesk have the cheek to require customers to pay a sum on top of the subscription fee for obtaining an update in their software.
Subscription licenses are costing organisations thousands of pounds annually, but still ask for more money to obtain the software!
The installers are now in the 10's of Gb's.
Surely from a customer relations exercise, it makes sense to swallow the cost of the media & postage?

[rkmcswain]

This isn't new for AutoCAD 2017, it started a while back.

[cadtag]

I am gobsmacked that Autodesk have the cheek to require customers to pay a sum on top of the subscription fee for obtaining an update in their software.
Subscription licenses are costing organisations thousands of pounds annually, but still ask for more money to obtain the software!
The installers are now in the 10's of Gb's.
Surely from a customer relations exercise, it makes sense to swallow the cost of the media & postage?

Remember, Autodesk has already got your money. With maintenance subscription, you've knowingly paid in advance for a product that may or may not be of any use. And since Autodesk no longer sells licenses, just rents them out by the month/quarter/year -- having a shippable physical product is not something they are prioritizing.

Face it, with their cloud focus, unless you are willing to become a dedicated consumer of cloud services and have a high-capacity high speed connection to the internet, you're not the customer they are interested in relating to..

[JGA_o1]

CADtag,
Yup, you've nailed it. If you are not a first world customer with fast 'n open internet access, Autodesk don't appear to bother.

[remi678731]

Yep all they are concerned about are the big corporations
nothing new

[dgorsman]

CADtag,
Yup, you've nailed it. If you are not a first world customer with fast 'n open internet access, Autodesk don't appear to bother.

Well yeah, of course not - why would they care about people who are unlikely to be customers? The "first world" (North America) isn't the only place in the world with decent internet service. And anyplace which doesn't have that level of technology just isn't likely to have customers of any significance.

I take it everybody here takes in every Tom, Larry, and Nancy who comes in off the street with a drawing to do? Probably not - you aren't going to make money on it. That's not even ye olde Gordon Gekko business practices either.

[cadtag]

Sure, making a profit is essential if one is going to remain a viable business. There's a difference though, between making a profit, and developing an entire business strategy based on rent seeking.

fortunately for those who lack unlimited data plans and fiber optic lines to the premises, or are constrained by confidentiality or legal limitations, there are a number of viable alternatives to the Autodesk strategy, from the Intellicads, to Carlson, Graebert, Corel, & Bricsys among a plethora of others. Pricepoints ranging from free, to a few grand U$D.

[NerdlingOne]

If you require a physical copy of the files, you could email your reseller. Some nice person at your local reseller would be glad to send you a flash drive with the media on it if downloading is truly a problem. You may not have a choice with Autodesk, but you can (usually) shop around for a new reseller, so they do a bit more to earn your business.