At least in my sphere it's also that the only competitor people see is Solidworks which they've had somewhat less than great experiences with, and more importantly, which is susceptible to the exact same issue on Dassault's whim.
All of the drafters I work with are unhappy about the subscription licensing, know we're getting shafted from it, and wish there was a viable alternative. Maybe if Microsoft or some other tech giant decides to sponsor both opencascade and freecad we'd have something usable in a couple of years, but as it stands freecad is both the closest thing to and a _long_ way from even resembling a competitive product.
Yeah, the state of this space is a wasteland, I agree.
And freecad, ugh, sorry to be negative, but ... people in this thread are complaining about how bad the Blender UI was back in the days (not the case any more) ... they should try the freecad UI, it's truly, truly terrible ... if there ever was an app that deserves the label 'Kitchen Sink', freecad UI is it.
All of the drafters I work with are unhappy about the subscription licensing, know we're getting shafted from it, and wish there was a viable alternative. Maybe if Microsoft or some other tech giant decides to sponsor both opencascade and freecad we'd have something usable in a couple of years, but as it stands freecad is both the closest thing to and a _long_ way from even resembling a competitive product.