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Comment by chiph | Hacker News Reader

I think JetBrains miscalculated just how much people like the current licensing model.

I liked their first model - I paid for it and just used it. The current model, with the yearly upgrade premium, I tolerated. I felt it was a scam (are they going to publish an update in the next year so I get my money's worth? Probably not) but I could deal with it.

This new model doesn't work for me at all. As someone who bought his own license, used it at work, and got 3 employers to switch to it -- this doesn't feel right. I am reminded of Altova. They turned their $120 XML editor into a $999 enterprise behemoth. I haven't recommended them in over 10 years.

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I agree with all your points. I have used jetbrains products for 15 years so I feel sad that this is how they are going to lose me and other customers. I was hoping they would come with an IDE for golang and I would buy that as well. Now, this is a big disappointment.

So your license price jumps from $89 to $120/yr and now you're no longer a customer? Do you not think their tools probably make up for that $120/yr in terms of your productivity?

If you struggle with Netbeans or Eclipse for an hour or two with something IntelliJ does easily, you've already paid for your license.

I don't understand arguing about peanuts; pay it the trivial increase and get on with the show of making real money. No wonder why so many startups fail.

I think (for me anyway) the problem isn't the price at all. It's the fact that if you let your subscription lapse you CANNOT use the product.

In my case (small business) we have months of very low activity. Now if I let my subscription lapse then I lose access to the software and it becomes more expensive since I wouldn't have the existing customer discount anymore (presumably).

I would easily pay double what I'm paying now _but_ on the existing scheme where I can upgrade when I want to, not when I'm forced to.

so don't fucking use it. if it's literally not valuable enough to justify 100/yr, just let it go and use eclipse or notepad or something.

Pixard said:

> I think (for me anyway) the problem isn't the price at all. It's the fact that if you let your subscription lapse you CANNOT use the product.

(emphasis mine)

So pay yearly and make sure at the annual accounting meeting to renew your Jetbrain subscriptions because they are the ultimate infrastructure for your company?

My comment was tailored to address killface's dramatic lack of understanding [0] of pixard's statement. :)

[0] Indeed, he appears to have failed to read and/or comprehend the first two sentences in pixard's comment.

You need to use their tools. Jetbrains needs to pay the bills.

Your profit margins prohibit you from purchasing new licenses at $120/yr (it's a business expense, so it's even cheaper).

Your business model seems more suspect than anything to do with Jetbrains.

pixard said:

> I would easily pay double what I'm paying now _but_ on the existing scheme where I can upgrade when I want to...

If he upgrades every other year, then JetBrains's revenue per year works out to be the exactly the same as in their subscription model. In the subscription model, if he has a down month around about the time when his JB subscription payment is due, he loses access to his tools. This could kill his business, which would -in turn- shut off the money faucet to JB.

> (it's a business expense, so it's even cheaper)

Does JetBrains have a business license that's cheaper than $120/year? If they don't, then $120/year is still $120/year, whether or not a business is spending the money.

> Your business model seems more suspect...

Do you run a business? Do you know anyone who does? There are good months and bad months; cash flow is almost never steady. Indeed, it is likely this very fact that is causing the JB people to switch to the subscription (AKA "Let's get a guaranteed revenue stream!") model of billing.

I don't care about the difference between $89 and $120 in the cost of a tool.

I do care about the difference between license and have it to use indefinitely and continually having to pay to use the product.

Notice how your comparison isn't apples to apples, because the one price is in dollars and the other is in dollar years.

I want to upgrade when I want to. I don't want to be forced to upgrade just to continue using the product! This is main grouse.

> * I felt it was a scam (are they going to publish an update in the next year so I get my money's worth? Probably not) but I could deal with it.*

Surely under the current model you can just not pay for another year until they release an update you want access to?

Your 1 year upgrade starts from when your last license ran, not from when you paid for the upgrade. So if your license ran out in January and you bought a 1 year upgrade next June. That upgrade would only last until next January, not next June.

.. but then you lose the 'renew' discount and have to cough up full price when the update eventually arrives.

So the complaint is that, because you choose not to regularly renew the software, you don't get the discount that comes with it? That sounds kind of entitled, honestly.

It goes against decades of tradition. In the past, the upgrade was offered at a discount to reward your customers for staying with you. It also reflected the lower acquisition cost for that release -- since you didn't have to spend any marketing dollars to find them.

Their policy was saying "We appreciate your loyalty, but only for the next year then you'll have to go back to paying full price." But the year didn't start on the renewal date, it was back-dated to the anniversary of the original purchase date. Which meant if you didn't renew on time, you weren't getting a full year .. maybe only 8 months. It was a money-grab, but one I could tolerate.

I made sense if you think about paying for updates in terms of paying for their work. If you wait 3 months and then get 12 months license for updates you effectively got 15 months for a price of 12. They may be hesitant to offer that to you on a discounted price. I think it makes perfect sense.

The 3 months were spent using the previous version, so you didn't get the benefit of the improvements in the upgrade. But this scheme means you paid for them anyway.

Anniversary date: March 1st Upgrade announced: June 1st You get around to purchasing the upgrade: September 1st You get to use the new version for 5 more months (until March 1st) before your upgrade premium expires.

You didn't "use" the new things but you get them now. They've spent 3 months developing stuff which you now want basically for free. Think about it as paying for work, it takes time to develop features, say 1 feature a week. You didn't pay for 3 months, they added 12 things. You now get them without paying if you were to get 12 months since renewal. It really is no wonder they don't want to offer that on a discount.

No you can't. Under the new model if you stop paying, it stops working.

I said current model, not new model. (But other replies to me say that isn't the case with the current model either.)

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