I was humbled by just how complex sewing can be for me as someone who up until recently only experience with sewing was mending rips and buttons by hand. That is to say, I have a lot to learn when it comes to applying sewing technique to patterns, and while designing patterns might be somewhat orthogonal to that, I hope I'll get to do that as well, but you're right, this website, at least for now is not about designing your own patterns, but rather about making your own gear.

I have zero experience in designing patterns, but as for the tools, I've heard great things about Valentina, an open source tool that has been also forked as Seamly2D (last time I checked Seamly2D seemed less maintained but that's all know).

As to the cost, I just checked to make sure he didn't change that some* patterns are free. The newer ones have for a pretty typical price for sewing patters as far as I can tell.

* The free patterns are for fanny pack, running belt, tote bag, stem bag as well as the stuff sacks and the zip pouch