Oh yes there's plenty of free CAD (for example, FreeCAD), but there are some truly excellent but insanely expensive tools out there too.
I would be happy to spend a large sum of money for a copy, but you can't any more. You have to buy a subscription.
If I can buy something excellent and know that I'll be able to use it, even if outdated, in 10 years, there's real value to an investment like that.
If I'm throwing several dollars a day into a hole for something I'll probably only use sometimes, and at that, perhaps taking years between uses, I can't justify the expense.
Something like how I bought the best cordless drill I could find. Not because I use it every day, or even every month, but because I wanted my drilling experience to be good every time I used it.
If you have good tools you're more likely to do things and do them well.
People give the same advice about guitars. Don't buy a cheap guitar if you want to pick up the skill. It will be difficult to tune, it won't keep a tune, and it won't sound great whatever you do. Buy a good guitar and what you do will sound better and encourage you to keep it up and get better.
A lot of free software tools are the same. They can do what they do, but their flaws discourage use and make failure as a beginner a lot more likely.
There is probably an optimum there. Not so refined as to be too expensive to be accessible to most people and not so rudimentary as to turn away people who try with low success.
I would be happy to spend a large sum of money for a copy, but you can't any more. You have to buy a subscription.
If I can buy something excellent and know that I'll be able to use it, even if outdated, in 10 years, there's real value to an investment like that.
If I'm throwing several dollars a day into a hole for something I'll probably only use sometimes, and at that, perhaps taking years between uses, I can't justify the expense.
Something like how I bought the best cordless drill I could find. Not because I use it every day, or even every month, but because I wanted my drilling experience to be good every time I used it.
If you have good tools you're more likely to do things and do them well.
People give the same advice about guitars. Don't buy a cheap guitar if you want to pick up the skill. It will be difficult to tune, it won't keep a tune, and it won't sound great whatever you do. Buy a good guitar and what you do will sound better and encourage you to keep it up and get better.
A lot of free software tools are the same. They can do what they do, but their flaws discourage use and make failure as a beginner a lot more likely.
There is probably an optimum there. Not so refined as to be too expensive to be accessible to most people and not so rudimentary as to turn away people who try with low success.