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Comment by dingaling | Hacker News Reader

Well this one tool is 'only' $60 per year[0]. But what if your compiler moved to subscription, and your text editor and your e-mail client and ...

It's the thousand-cuts problem. And once you start on that path you can't go back, or else the tool stops working.

[0] which is a substantial chunk of a day's after-tax pay for many people in the UK, for example. 1/400th of their salary for a password database.

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My compiler (MSVC) is subscription. My go-to editor for other stuff (PyCharm and other JetBrains editors) is a subscription. My email client isn't, but my email hosting (FastMail), which has a web client, is.

It doesn't even register -- they are tools I need for my work and I'm happy to pay yearly for them. It's worth nothing that with the exception of email (which, being on my own domain, I can always move elsewhere), I still keep usable licenses if I stop subscribing, I am not locked-in.

> And once you start on that path you can't go back, or else the tool stops working.

How would you feel about a subscription service that guaranteed updates? Essentially, upgrade pricing, but charged every month.

Will my compiler or IDE stop working if I don't pay the subscription fee? You can guess how I'd feel about that.

No: you’re paying for updates, not the privilege of getting to use the software.

So, you have a perpetual license to use the latest version of the software that you paid for?

Perfect.

... But JetBrains attempted to explain why this doesn't work with the subscription model. And failed IMO, but regardless.

You're absolutely right. I use over 400 tools. I'd be completely broke if I had to subscribe to them all.

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