Why are people so resentful about paying money for their incredibly useful primarily development tool?
Often while I'm using PyCharm I'm awed by how powerful it is and amazed that JetBrains has the resources, time, brainpower and money to write it. And that's not worth a few bucks? Sheesh.
Seriously, it's a trivial amount of money and if you or your company can't afford it then you like this should go and use free alternatives.
Loving the tool enough to use it but hating on a company enough to declare it's lost all its customer loyalty makes my blood boil.
Also, how does this guy elevate himself to the all-knowing position to declare from his personal opinion how much customer loyalty JetBrains has actually lost?
I want the companies who make great software to make money and keep doing it.
This guy should just go use a different product that he doesn't have to pay for. It's not necessary to trash JetBrains on your way out the door.
Few, if any, people are complaining about paying money for the tool. I don't know where comments like this are coming from.
What I, and most, are complaining about is the fact that they are turning their offerings into "rental only" software (a disturbing trend in the industry).
I have no problems paying JetBrains, and I do, every year, even for duplicate product offerings whose functionality is included in the main IntelliJ product because I love them so much.
I have a problem with rental only software that will stop working the second I stop paying you. I will no longer be a JetBrains customer if they do not bring back a perpetual license offering, and I have told them so.
See my other comment [1] for why customers are allowed to complain.
This isn't about paying money (we'll pay the money), this is about whether the software will just curl up and suddenly die on you, while you're on the hook to meet a deadline where minutes count.
They reserve the right to do just that. In the case of sudden, unexpected company collapse, they may have no choice but to kill all their software at once. That is the hazard.
Unless you have a rock-solid contract with stiff penalties, software rental is a highly risky proposition.
I do not like the idea of paying a monthly fee BUT I do buy the license annually so its not a huge difference to me. If this keeps JetBrains in business its fine with me. This is such an insignificant cost for a tool that I use all day, every day.
Moving to a subscription model for 1 thing is okay, perhaps 2, or even 3. But with every company gradually moving to subscription models, it is emptying out our wallets every month and removing more and more of our income to maintain the status quo.
From my own perspective, and I know this doesn't apply to all, but I cannot imagine I'm the only person with this viewpoint, I'm sick of other developers saying things like: "You know what? For the amount developers earn, $X is a small price to pay." You're right, $X for a single piece of software is a small price. But when you add the cost of your MSDN license here, your JetBrains license there, your Xamarin university/license, O'Reilly Safari License, PluralSight license, Apple Developer License, the Mac required to compile/publish for iOS and countless other licenses, software and hardware purchases to do our jobs - all of which are gradually moving towards month-by-month subscription models with excessively large combined annual overheads, it cuts more and more into your budget... and not to forget that the income you make doesn't just pay for an ever revolving cycle of tools to maintain your competitiveness as these arguments seem to forget [unless you're still living in Mom's basement and all your income is expendable or can feed the endless software-as-a-service lifestyle]. It's also used to ensure that your kids get a good education so they can make their own valuable contributions to society; that you're able to live comfortably and not worry about where your next meal is coming from; that your family is safe and secure and well prepared for the unexpected; medical plans; retirement plans; mortgage; vehicle payments; the list goes on... all of which costs money - every month!
I'm growing tired of companies feeling like they can reach into my pocket month after month and take every spare penny for "services rendered." At what point will people turn around and say "Enough's enough! My money is mine!" I'm happy to buy products when they move me forward, but I hate paying monthly subscriptions on the off chance that you're going to provide an update that may [but probably won't] benefit me in the longer term.
As a company providing software, I'm not purchasing you as a service. I'm purchasing your product. When I work for a company that pays me every month, I'm selling myself to them as a service - to do their bidding and write the code they want. If I'm to pay for you as a service, then the money I'm paying you had better be providing what I need to do my job more effectively, just like if I pay a cleaner to come clean the house, I'm not paying for them to develop makeup products that benefit their other clients while I don't wear makeup. I want the option of buying the product that does help me do my job more effectively and then I'll hold on to the rest of my money and allocate it where that is the case.
So would you rather pay a one-off fee for a JetBrains product and have no maintenance and support for it?
And by that I mean not even access to their public forums and for their devs to stop posting on Stack Overflow. Because that's the reality for most one-off purchase products. You'll get minimal over-the-phone customer support if you're lucky.
Not sure why you see it as a product that doesn't fit a subscription model. These devs have to constantly put in a ton of work to support this kind of product.
And like other comments have pointed out, if you don't see the value, there ARE free alternatives. It's your call. Ultimately if JetBrains have in fact got this offering wrong then customers will say no and JetBrains will lose out.
I rarely go looking for customer support for anything except on Stack Overflow. 90% of the time, community driven forums are way more helpful for most products than the original company... most developers give of their own time there by donation, to give back to the rest of the community that feed that cycle. I like that I can give back there, just as I can receive help. If Jetbrains suddenly required that their developers boycott such forums, I would wager it would be a downward spiral for loyalty to them.
I'm not knocking Jetbrains here, so don't take this like a personal gripe at their company. I've been a faithful purchaser of Resharper for a number of years and will likely continue. I'm quite happy to pay for software, and I pay for thousands of dollars worth of software and licenses every year to do my job. Developers have families to feed. I know, I am one and I have one. But I don't expect to write a piece of software that makes your life easier and say - hey, by the way, you can have that software for $10 a month and when you stop paying me, it stops working.
I don't mind paying for a support contract if I feel I need one, but that should not be the default model for the software. I'd rather pay for the software outright and then if I feel I will need support, pay for a support contract too. But I don't want to be told "the only way to 'purchase' our software is via a perpetual rental agreement."... as someone said below somewhere - that's how poor people stay poor.
What is being sold here is effectively the same as a perpetual support contract that comes with some free software... which stops working if you stop paying for the support contract because you decide you no longer require support...
They had a model where I got some support for X months (12?) for the cost of the license. When that license ended, I got no more support, but the software kept working. If I don't need the support, and am happy with the version I have, why do I need to keep paying in perpetuity for new features and service I'll never use?
I'm fine if they want to introduce new licensing options, but pulling the old perpetual license model bothers me. Raise the perpetual price if you want to guide more people to monthly/annual, but let me keep a perpetual license that doesn't stop working when I quit paying.
The problem with JB not accommodating the sentiment isn't just "Jetbrains will lose out" - many current and future users will too.
I do too, but many of us hate the subscription model. To go from having a certain level of autonomy to feeling like little more than a peasant in JetBrain's little software fiefdom...
That is the problem with these models. Perpetual licensing grants the user independence... subscription licensing holds your tools hostage unless you pay up. $25 for adobe here, $20 for jetbrains there, pretty soon $20 for windows, $20 for office, $20 here $20 there $20 everywhere... it adds up. Maybe all of these companies will stay in business... if the software was sufficiently popular. If not, then POOF
It didn't used to be that way. It doesn't have to be this way. Some of us prefer to pay once.
That said, JetBrain's previous model was pretty shitty too... if you wanted to sit out a couple months and wait for the next version before renewing your license, those fuckers would backdate your purchase so it began on the last day of your previous license. Jerks...
What a bullshit way to start your own complaint. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people complaining about this.
> Why are people so resentful about paying money for their incredibly useful primarily development tool?
It's not about the money, it's about the principle. Poor people rent things. That's how they stay poor. How would you feel if you woke up one morning and couldn't go buy some eggs from the supermarket until you joined their club for 100$ a month? You'd go to another supermarket. What if you couldn't buy a car, only lease one?
> Loving the tool enough to use it but hating on a company enough to declare it's lost all its customer loyalty makes my blood boil.
Have you ever heard the saying "You have to love someone before you hate them?" Does that saying also make your blood boil?
> Also, how does this guy elevate himself to the all-knowing position to declare from his personal opinion how much customer loyalty JetBrains has actually lost?
Because he's talking about himself and his own loyalty to the company?
> I want the companies who make great software to make money and keep doing it.
OK. But if people disagree with the pricing model and it drives away customers, that's not going to work either and no amount of your own whining is going to stop that.
> This guy should just go use a different product that he doesn't have to pay for.
Yeah it's a good solution. I think that's what he said he'd do in the last paragraph. Many of the comments here and on his blog echoed the same thing saying that they'd use Eclipse or NetBeans instead.
> It's not about the money, it's about the principle. Poor people rent things. That's how they stay poor. How would you feel if you woke up one morning and couldn't go buy some eggs from the supermarket until you joined their club for 100$ a month? You'd go to another supermarket. What if you couldn't buy a car, only lease one?
Wow, you've just explained so well why I feel uneasy about all this switching to subscription payments for locally install-able software.
I mean, there isn't that much change, and it's even cheaper upfront, but... there's something about it. Not being able to own the stuff you're using every day (and depend on) is that it. It just kinda feels that you're owned instead.
I'm with you. It especially bugs the hell out of me to see this attitude coming from other software developers. I've never complained about having to pay for someone else's software, because I really hope other people will see fit to not complain and buy mine. This is our livelihood here. We can't all be independently wealthy open-source developers.
Read the cogent comments more closely. Folks aren't concerned about the cost of the software. They're concerned about the built-in killswitch. Most folks in the thread will pay 2->4x more than they are paying now for a perpetual license to a particular version of the software. They're also more than happy to pay that same amount for future versions of the software, but on a schedule that they dictate.
If you're considering making a tool a critical part of how you do business, you need to be able to rely on it forever.
If you rent that tool -and don't have a rock-solid contract with stiff penalties- the lessor may chose to suddenly discontinue, or dramatically raise the price of that tool. Or their company may suddenly go under, taking access to all of your rented software with it. In any of those situations, you'll be left scrambling to find a replacement for something that once was a critical part of your business.
Why are people so resentful about paying money for their incredibly useful primarily development tool?
Often while I'm using PyCharm I'm awed by how powerful it is and amazed that JetBrains has the resources, time, brainpower and money to write it. And that's not worth a few bucks? Sheesh.
Seriously, it's a trivial amount of money and if you or your company can't afford it then you like this should go and use free alternatives.
Loving the tool enough to use it but hating on a company enough to declare it's lost all its customer loyalty makes my blood boil.
Also, how does this guy elevate himself to the all-knowing position to declare from his personal opinion how much customer loyalty JetBrains has actually lost?
I want the companies who make great software to make money and keep doing it.
This guy should just go use a different product that he doesn't have to pay for. It's not necessary to trash JetBrains on your way out the door.