What does "noncommercial use" mean in this context though? These are tools for work - is the idea that students can use them for free and then will start paying once they finish school?
If you are writing code that you are going to be paid for, you are supposed to pay.
Of course, they know a lot of small devs will use it that should not. But few of them would have paid anyway and this creates a much greater pool of buyers when those devs get jobs or achieve commercial success.
I am a Rider fan so this is exciting.
It's worth noting that even before this change, you can get the entire JB suite for free if you regularly contribute to a qualifying OSS project https://www.jetbrains.com/community/opensource/.
Curious where the line is if you're using it during a YouTube video that you have a Patreon for etc.
I think most games built never make money.
Now you can just use it for free for any hobby/oss projects without all the red tape.
Free for non-commercial offers a easy way to get people to use it and hopefully advocate for it at their jobs.