On the other, somebody may find the paid version cost-prohibitive and may look for an alternative piece of software without this bit of information. On one hand, I am supporting a company and piece of software that I find intuitive and revolutionary (parametric modeling). I only found this info through another Redditor and wanted to pass along the info to help the community. They frame it in a way that makes it seem like after your first year of the free version, you need to sign up for the paid version.
Looking for a full version of Fusion 360 to download for free Check out our article to see what your options are. This led me to believe that the free version was now only a year trial. Fusion 360: Free Download of the Full Version.
I didn't think the paid subscription was outrageous, certainly not compared with a SolidWorks or Inventor license, so I didn't look do any more digging. Some of you may know that Autodesk recently updated their user agreement and what is offered in the free versions of their software. When I opened my Fusion 360 account I read something somewhere about a free 3-year license for students and 1-year for hobbyists, myself falling in the latter category.
They make it extremely convoluted and frankly hidden on their website that this is an option. Instead of signing up for the paid version (like I did) you can just renew your free version. If you have signed up for a free 'hobbyist' version of Fusion 360, you may notice that your trial might be expiring (it will display up in the title of the window).
* I discovered this was possible in a recent post, but I wanted to create another post to hopefully save people some heartache\*