5 ms·

It's my personal opinion that one only gets complaining rights if one doesn't use Gmail, one doesn't subscribe to NetFlix, one doesn't use Spotify, ad nauseum.

by oneJob 11y ago

It's my personal opinion that one only gets complaining rights if one doesn't use Gmail, one doesn't subscribe to NetFlix, one doesn't use Spotify, ad nauseum. JetBrains is making a business decision. That's what businesses do. Their current Community Edition is open-source. Anyone is free to pick up where they left off. That is an enormous contribution they've already made to the community. You make your consumer decision. They make their business decision. This is the implicit but very real relationship any customer of theirs has chosen to be in. I personally don't agree with their decision. But, I'm not running their business or working their jobs. Before going all "They're Google Reader'ing Us.", just ask yourself, do you use Gmail? Are you willing to continue their work on the Community Edition? edit: to clarify my examples. The services I referenced where chosen as examples of alternatives to options such as hosting one's own email or using existing perpetually or open-sourced licensed products (Gmail), a company that drastically revised it's product offering (NetFlix), and a company who's founder destroyed the business model of purchasing a c.d. for life by making mp3's user friendly and then went legit by moving to a SaaS model (Spotify). As others have pointed out, one can still purchase a perpetual license through November, so JetBrains is not only not stealing back the product they sold you, they are also giving you time whether you'd like to make this transition with them. If not, simply do not purchase their product in the future. To expect JetBrains to do otherwise (maintain their business model) is to tell them how to make very basic decisions about how they run their business and live their lives. That, I think, is bad. tl;dr: They didn't steal anything. Don't tell people how to live their lives.

danieldk 11y ago
It's my personal opinion that one only gets complaining rights if one doesn't use Gmail, one doesn't subscribe to NetFlix, one doesn't use Spotify, ad nauseum. That does not make sense. Spotify et al. were like that from the beginning. You know what kind of deal you are getting. JetBrains is changing the rules of the game completely, with very little heads-up time, for people who might be deeply invested in their products. It's comparable to what Adobe pulled off: they knew that most people did not have a choice, so they could force it on them. Luckily, the IDE landscape is a bit more healthy, so I expect that a subset of their customers will flee to other IDEs.
- atonse 11y ago
  Not so sure about that. JetBrains has excellent products. So, sure, people can flock to other tools, but they aren't necessarily better tools. I have gotten so used to using ReSharper, I'm probably 30% less productive without it.
  - epalmer 11y ago
    I use IntelliJ, phpStorm and pyCharm all on a regular business. But I work for a university and just assume that the subscriptions won't lapse. That may be a bad assumption given that I control the departments budget and it would come out of my allocations if the cost go up. Mixed feelings on this change. But I really like the three products I use and will continue to use them.
    - dagw 11y ago
      If you regularly use/upgrade lots of their products then this new scheme should work out cheaper. The people who potentially lose out are the people who only used one of their cheaper products and people who go several years without upgrading.
      - danieldk 11y ago
        Or, if you are on their flagship product (IntelliJ IDEA). Sure, you save a whopping 10 Euro per year. But suddenly, you have a subscription rather than owning a perpetual license. Sounds like a bad deal.
    - LoneWolf 11y ago
      If you work for an university you should probably be able to use the education license, which is free.
      - epalmer 11y ago
        Not free for internal use just for classroom. Discounted and a pain to get them to give us the discount.
teacup50 11y ago
This makes no sense whatsoever. All of the things you listed are services that run on servers that cost money to run. JetBrains' IDEs are downloadable software that we pay for and exists in perpetuity. I also have no idea why you're referencing the community edition; the people complaining are customers that pay for JetBrains' non-OSS software.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
mkozlows 11y ago
The more immediately obvious comparison is MSDN. Anyone who's using ReSharper, at least, is already almost certainly subscribing to MSDN.
- macca321 11y ago
  I'm not. Why would I subscribe to MSDN? I used to have a paid for VS Pro, now I use Community.
  - matwood 11y ago
    Yeah, MS has been moving in the opposite direction and making more and more of their developer tools free or nearly so.
svisser 11y ago
> I personally don't agree with their decision. But, I'm not running their business or working their jobs. What if you discover many other customers also don't agree with this decision? In that case it seems fair to write it down and provide feedback to the company making the decision.
mikeash 11y ago
I pay for Spotify. I don't like JetBrains' decision. Walk me through why this removes my right to complain. I don't get it. I don't like JetBrains' decision because using their software represents a large investment in time and effort to learn it and get set up to use it. That investment could then be destroyed at any time if they go out of business, or if they decide in a few years that their prices need to be 500x higher. This is important to me because building software is how I eat. Spotify is click and go. It's just music, and there are about a thousand other services where I can get music if Spotify goes kablooie. Worst case I have no more streaming music, and I can continue to eat even if that happens. So do explain, how does paying for the latter mean I can't complain about the former?
- fastball 11y ago
  1. If they "go out of business" you will save money with the new model, because instead of paying for a year of the license in advance, you are paying by month. 2. Nothing in their old model prevented them from raising prices. Not sure how you think switching to a monthly subscription model changes that. i.e. your entire premise, that this is an investment of time and money, really has nothing to do with JetBrains' switch to a subscription model. In fact, they would probably be more likely to go out of business if they stuck with the old model, so this protects your investment. Complaining because you don't think you can afford it is an understandable position. Your points, however, are entirely irrelevant.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I think you're missing the fact that with the old model your purchase keeps working forever, you just don't get updates. With the new model, your purchase stops working when the subscription runs out. If they went out of business or raised prices in the old model, I could keep using the version I purchased for as long as I wanted. With the new model, my software turns into a pumpkin and my choice is either to keep paying whatever they want to charge, or switch to something else.
    - fastball 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
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kryptiskt 11y ago
They should be happy that the customers are complaining, it gives them a chance to consider their concerns. I just usually walk away without warning if I'm unhappy with a product, customers like me force businesses to do a lot of detective work to find out the reasons for bad retention.
dsabanin 11y ago
All these threads complaining about JetBrains decision are actually debating what we as customers should do. I think you missed that point. We give JetBrains a chance to change it's mind by this public outrage, and if they don't listen – many people will switch.
throwaway_xgqtr 11y ago
Let me actually clarify what you are saying for you, as I see this sentiment quite often and it drives me nuts. You are saying that as a paying customer, one is not allowed to question any product or service offering they pay for (or even will potentially pay for as a potential customer). One is not allowed to suggest improvements. One is not allowed to state that if the company would modify the offering in some way, then they would again become a paying customer. One's only choices are to pay for the product/service as is or walk away and keep quiet. One is also not allowed to mention to friends/acquaintances/colleagues that they are dissatisfied with the overall value of a product or service, or indicate that they do not believe the overall value to be worth it. As before, one's only choices here are to give good recommendations of the product/service to others or to not say anything at all. "Take what we offer or walk away quietly and never speak of this again, those are your only choices." This is essentially what you are saying. Are you sure that is what you want to be saying?

by oneJob 11y ago

danieldk 11y ago

It's my personal opinion that one only gets complaining rights if one doesn't use Gmail, one doesn't subscribe to NetFlix, one doesn't use Spotify, ad nauseum. That does not make sense. Spotify et al. were like that from the beginning. You know what kind of deal you are getting. JetBrains is changing the rules of the game completely, with very little heads-up time, for people who might be deeply invested in their products. It's comparable to what Adobe pulled off: they knew that most people did not have a choice, so they could force it on them. Luckily, the IDE landscape is a bit more healthy, so I expect that a subset of their customers will flee to other IDEs.

atonse 11y ago
Not so sure about that. JetBrains has excellent products. So, sure, people can flock to other tools, but they aren't necessarily better tools. I have gotten so used to using ReSharper, I'm probably 30% less productive without it.
- epalmer 11y ago
  I use IntelliJ, phpStorm and pyCharm all on a regular business. But I work for a university and just assume that the subscriptions won't lapse. That may be a bad assumption given that I control the departments budget and it would come out of my allocations if the cost go up. Mixed feelings on this change. But I really like the three products I use and will continue to use them.
  - dagw 11y ago
    If you regularly use/upgrade lots of their products then this new scheme should work out cheaper. The people who potentially lose out are the people who only used one of their cheaper products and people who go several years without upgrading.
    - danieldk 11y ago
      Or, if you are on their flagship product (IntelliJ IDEA). Sure, you save a whopping 10 Euro per year. But suddenly, you have a subscription rather than owning a perpetual license. Sounds like a bad deal.
  - LoneWolf 11y ago
    If you work for an university you should probably be able to use the education license, which is free.
    - epalmer 11y ago
      Not free for internal use just for classroom. Discounted and a pain to get them to give us the discount.

teacup50 11y ago

This makes no sense whatsoever. All of the things you listed are services that run on servers that cost money to run. JetBrains' IDEs are downloadable software that we pay for and exists in perpetuity. I also have no idea why you're referencing the community edition; the people complaining are customers that pay for JetBrains' non-OSS software.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

mkozlows 11y ago

The more immediately obvious comparison is MSDN. Anyone who's using ReSharper, at least, is already almost certainly subscribing to MSDN.

macca321 11y ago
I'm not. Why would I subscribe to MSDN? I used to have a paid for VS Pro, now I use Community.
- matwood 11y ago
  Yeah, MS has been moving in the opposite direction and making more and more of their developer tools free or nearly so.

svisser 11y ago

> I personally don't agree with their decision. But, I'm not running their business or working their jobs. What if you discover many other customers also don't agree with this decision? In that case it seems fair to write it down and provide feedback to the company making the decision.

mikeash 11y ago

I pay for Spotify. I don't like JetBrains' decision. Walk me through why this removes my right to complain. I don't get it. I don't like JetBrains' decision because using their software represents a large investment in time and effort to learn it and get set up to use it. That investment could then be destroyed at any time if they go out of business, or if they decide in a few years that their prices need to be 500x higher. This is important to me because building software is how I eat. Spotify is click and go. It's just music, and there are about a thousand other services where I can get music if Spotify goes kablooie. Worst case I have no more streaming music, and I can continue to eat even if that happens. So do explain, how does paying for the latter mean I can't complain about the former?

fastball 11y ago
1. If they "go out of business" you will save money with the new model, because instead of paying for a year of the license in advance, you are paying by month. 2. Nothing in their old model prevented them from raising prices. Not sure how you think switching to a monthly subscription model changes that. i.e. your entire premise, that this is an investment of time and money, really has nothing to do with JetBrains' switch to a subscription model. In fact, they would probably be more likely to go out of business if they stuck with the old model, so this protects your investment. Complaining because you don't think you can afford it is an understandable position. Your points, however, are entirely irrelevant.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I think you're missing the fact that with the old model your purchase keeps working forever, you just don't get updates. With the new model, your purchase stops working when the subscription runs out. If they went out of business or raised prices in the old model, I could keep using the version I purchased for as long as I wanted. With the new model, my software turns into a pumpkin and my choice is either to keep paying whatever they want to charge, or switch to something else.
  - fastball 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kryptiskt 11y ago

They should be happy that the customers are complaining, it gives them a chance to consider their concerns. I just usually walk away without warning if I'm unhappy with a product, customers like me force businesses to do a lot of detective work to find out the reasons for bad retention.

dsabanin 11y ago

All these threads complaining about JetBrains decision are actually debating what we as customers should do. I think you missed that point. We give JetBrains a chance to change it's mind by this public outrage, and if they don't listen – many people will switch.

throwaway_xgqtr 11y ago

Let me actually clarify what you are saying for you, as I see this sentiment quite often and it drives me nuts. You are saying that as a paying customer, one is not allowed to question any product or service offering they pay for (or even will potentially pay for as a potential customer). One is not allowed to suggest improvements. One is not allowed to state that if the company would modify the offering in some way, then they would again become a paying customer. One's only choices are to pay for the product/service as is or walk away and keep quiet. One is also not allowed to mention to friends/acquaintances/colleagues that they are dissatisfied with the overall value of a product or service, or indicate that they do not believe the overall value to be worth it. As before, one's only choices here are to give good recommendations of the product/service to others or to not say anything at all. "Take what we offer or walk away quietly and never speak of this again, those are your only choices." This is essentially what you are saying. Are you sure that is what you want to be saying?