there is a reason why pirates and hackers will clone it and sell or give it way for free.
go figure!
I am surprised, no one from China has said anything here.
When I traveled China this year I saw a lot of installed Solidworks packages in
companies that did not pay anything at all and the company owners do not care.
So, there must be a lot of illegally installed Solidworks seats around the world,
probably just because the official license is so expensive.
And ...
My clients are totally happy with me using an older version of Solidworks.
So, I have not signed up for the yearly renewal since 2015.
However, this year I wanted to upgrade to Solidworks 2018, and expected
to pay one yearly fee of Euro 2000,- (including sales tax) to get the latest version.
But .... NO!
Solidworks Germany requires to have all last 3 years paid, so 6000 Euro!
Next year it will be 8000!
What kind of Bullshit is that.