"he only way to get the desktop modeler was to pay several hundred per year, which wasn't worth it to me. "

This comes up so often it's good to explain what happened there.

They were not out to extract value from consumer.

They retargeted the offering to professional engineering and architecture firms.

SketchUp was originally an offering for the AEC market. Then Google bought it and essentially pivoted it to consumer offering. Then Trimble bought it and pivoted it back.

I do realize this hurts the person who is a non-professional user but AFAIK SketchUp sales have never been better.

So it's not a pivot out of stupidity or malice, it's just a pivot.

The main customers - engineering and architecture companies - seem to be fine with it.

If you were an engineer CAD manager it would be odd to pay hundreds per seat a year for a product consumers can get for a pittance. So it's about pricing power I guess as well.

And do agree as a consumer there should be better options.