Autodesk is announcing this week that it’s going to reduce its employee base by at least 1,000 people, 7 percent of its employee base, as part of its strategic shift to more focus on AI and cloud services. And Wall Street is just eating it up! They loved every minute of it!
Users? Users are fleeing in droves.
This news has come on the back of a healthy revenue figure generated by the company in Q4, which came in at $1.64 billion, a year-over-year growth of 12%, and also increased its plans for share repurchase as its “free cash flow remains healthy.”
Such claims of customer satisfaction sound hollow to the team of engineers, designers, and makers who’ve watched Autodesk systematically dismantle the products they’ve made their living on for years.
The Autodesk Acquisition: How “No Plans to Eliminate” Became End-of-Life
EAGLE was the gold standard for electronics design in the maker and small business communities for over a decade. When Autodesk acquired CadSoft in 2016, company representatives publicly promised to maintain the free tier and keep the product accessible.
“Absolutely yes. We have no plans to eliminate the free tier at all,” Autodesk stated at the time.
Within months, EAGLE moved to subscription-only licensing. The free tier vanished. Linux support was dropped. Eventually, the software was bundled into Fusion 360 and stripped of standalone functionality. By 2023, Autodesk announced full end-of-life for EAGLE. As of June 7, 2026, the product will be completely discontinued.
The reasoning, according to community discussions, was that EAGLE didn’t reach its “full revenue potential.” Translation: it was widely used and deeply loved, but didn’t extract enough ongoing money from users.
Engineers who’d paid roughly $100 annually for EAGLE were told they’d need Fusion subscriptions costing several times more to continue their work. One longtime user captured the frustration perfectly: “I’ve been using EAGLE for over 20 years… cloud storage is such a deal breaker.”
From Subscriptions to Open-Source Defection
Autodesk’s aggressive push didn’t create loyalty. It created an exodus.
KiCad, an open-source PCB design tool backed by CERN, became the primary destination for fleeing EAGLE users. The current release of KiCad now has a comparable feature set to EAGLE, and it’s completely free. Engineers who once tolerated subscriptions decided they no longer wanted their designs locked behind accounts, internet connections, and licensing terms that could change without warning.
The pattern isn’t limited to EAGLE. Fusion 360 users are watching the same movie unfold. Local simulation features were removed and replaced with paid cloud credits that expire within one year. Cloud tokens cost $3 each, sold in bundles of 500. Autodesk has been crystal clear about its priorities: “Fusion may not be the product for you if you want to go completely offline.”
Free and hobbyist tiers have been repeatedly narrowed. Features get removed, partially restored after backlash, then gated again. Paying customers watch capabilities migrate into metered cloud systems for tasks their own hardware can already perform.
When Customers Fight Back
Autodesk’s insistence that these changes improve customer satisfaction faces serious pushback from the people actually using the software. In 2020, twenty-five major architecture firms representing $22 million in annual Autodesk spending signed an open letter documenting price increases exceeding 70% with minimal product improvement.
“Revit increasingly finds itself a constraint and bottleneck,” the letter stated.
Eight additional firms reportedly supported the letter but declined to sign publicly out of fear of retaliation. Think about that. Professional firms were afraid to criticize their software vendor.
By aggressively pushing subscriptions and cloud lock-in, Autodesk has inadvertently fueled a renaissance in open-source alternatives. KiCad, FreeCAD, and Blender are all stronger today because users were forced to look elsewhere. Some estimates suggest Autodesk’s actions have increased FreeCAD adoption by more than 30%.
There was a smarter path. When sunsetting products like EAGLE, open-sourcing the code would cost virtually nothing and earn enormous goodwill. Instead, Autodesk chose to become a living advertisement for its competitors.
Why Autodesk’s Financial Success May Cost Its Future
Autodesk may succeed financially with its cloud-first, AI-driven strategy. Under CEO Andrew Anagnost, the stock has soared, supported by over $1 billion annually in share repurchases.
But software that engineers use eight hours a day isn’t just a revenue stream. It’s infrastructure for creativity, education, and work. When the people who depend on that infrastructure feel ignored or disposable, they adapt.
They’re just doing it without Autodesk.
