Autodesk is willing to throw its users under the bus, with no warning and even after promising otherwise, if it suits their purposes. This very real risk is enough to make people think twice about investing their time in the Eagle ecosystem (in addition to Autodesk's money grubbing license policies).
In going to a subscription for v8 they in no way affected your existing v7 or earlier licenses, so not really thrown under any busses I don't think. My v7 license still works just fine and people have currently had 15 months post subscription change to find an alternative if they don't want to continue with EAGLE.
The pricing is not the issue (though it's more expensive for someone who makes a PCB every month). The part you're missing is that some of us prefer not to have our tools stop working on the day Autodesk decides Eagle isn't worth it anymore.
Technically they won't stop working the day Autodesk decides EAGLE isn't worth it anymore. As of v9 the license check period has been upped to 30 days so for most people who are online all the time that would give 30 days of their current license entitlement assuming Autodesk flicked the switch on the license server at the very instant they decided to end it all, then it would revert to the freeware restrictions, which is full view, export to CAM etc. Also, EAGLE is a pretty open format which most tools can import without too much trouble so you're highly unlikely to be totally stuck if the worst were to happen.
But all these arguments are based on the same old anti Autodesk/Subscription arguments that have been regurgitated on pretty much every EAGLE related thread on the forum in the last 15 months. If you don't like it, don't use EAGLE. Simple. Can we not have a thread discussing the features of a new version without the same people wading in and converting it into yet another subscription rant thread?
Before Autodesk took over, EAGLE was going nowhere. There were no new features of any note and no sign of any of the features people were asking for being developed as Cadsoft didn't have the resources to do so. Now that's all changed and it would be nice to be able to have sensible discussions about what's new and the direction things are going with the addition of all the new stuff.
Best Regards,
Rachael