Paid tools were rarely monthly subscriptions without which you could not produce code or executables.

Further, I can write and compile an application for Mac, Windows, or Linux with entirely free tools including tools provided directly by Apple and Microsoft.

This discussion is about is a monthly subscription, without which, most up and coming coders, certainly "vibe coders," are completely dead in the water.

These two dependencies are not the same. If that's not obvious to you, I don't know what else to say to that.