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Earlier post on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10170089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10170089 430 points & 495 comments (many not very nice)

by oneJob 11y ago

Earlier post on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10170089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10170089 430 points & 495 comments (many not very nice) Now everyone is quiet? How about some love here. This is awesome. MS is going with an "All your data is belonging to us" model; we all complain; nothing changes. Out of the blue, Google shuts down another service; we all complain; nothing changes. JetBrains, good on you. Way more than you had to do, and did it with class. Three cheers for JetBrains!

LoneWolf 11y ago
My thoughts too, 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239008 not many comments either. Come on, you were mad because you didn't like it, and now? I assume the silence means you are happy, come on! Show some love.
- WorldWideWayne 11y ago
  Why praise someone for doing the thing they should have done in the first place? That's like congratulating a cop for not beating up a random pedestrian. Actually, that's not even completely accurate - it's more like praising a car salesman for not charging you that extra $2,000 that you caught him tacking on. People should be praising themselves for complaining so loudly that they affected a positive change.
  - erichmond 11y ago
    What I am praising is the fact they listened to their customer feedback, and came back with a plan that they feel is "better" and addresses many of the issues their customers had. I am not sure what you mean by "doing the thing they should have done in the first place", What was the thing "they should have done"? They did their own market analysis, they did what they thought was right at the time, their userbase disagreed, they incorporated feedback and adjusted. This is exactly what I want companies I support to do. If you are mad at them for not reading your mind as to how you want them to run their business, that seems a bit silly.
    - WorldWideWayne 11y ago
      I'm not mad at all. I just disagree that they should be praised for seeking rent and then reversing their decision. Where is the merit in that?
      - hhariri 11y ago
        The move to subscription has not been reverted. What's been done is adjustments to address some concerns customers had. And this has been done in response to customer concerns.
        WorldWideWayne 11y ago
        Yeah, they did reverse it because now you can own the product after paying for a year's worth of rent. That's completely different from only being able to rent the product. But either way, there's still nothing praise-worthy here.
Zikes 11y ago
This post has only been up for an hour on HN, but there are 800+ comments on the blog post itself.
teacup50 11y ago
I'm burnt out. The change was horrible, and now they've walked it back -- yay, I guess, but why did they do something so customer hostile in the first place? JetBrains lost my trust, and I'm going to keep an eye on competitors.
smt88 11y ago
Consumers, for the most part, genuinely don't give a shit what happens to their data. It's sad but true. There was barely a blip when iCloud was hacked, just as one of many examples. The outcry was the minority there. As for Google shutting down a service: that's probably because it was a free service and wasn't making them any money. Was it stupid to shut it down instead of charging for it? Probably. But Google makes stupid business decisions pretty regularly, and they have the right to do so. In this case, the majority of people crying out were JetBrains customers. This isn't impressive, it's just baseline common sense.
dlandis 11y ago
Seems like a reasonable model, but I'm still surprised at how bad the previously announced strategy was. I think it's great that they listened to their customers in this case, but the fact that so many people at the company were in favor of the previous strategy still does raise some concerns for me.
hatsix 11y ago
Yay?! I didn't have a problem with the way they were pricing before. It matched nearly every other service I use, and it would have cost less (I guess webstorm cost a whole $20 more a year!). I just assumed that all of the people who were complaining before were the standard "Let's complain about things on the internet" people. Hence why they aren't showing up here to celebrate... they didn't actually care. Every dev I know IRL that uses JB software didn't care. 90% of them have it purchased for them by their company. I'm one of those who owns his own license, and I still don't care. In a place that is so startup-centric, I can't believe that there is so much pushback against startup-like pricing. In the other threads I'd have worried about being down-voted, but those individuals are likely busy creating controversy in some other thread.
- sangnoir 11y ago
  > In a place that is so startup-centric, I can't believe that there is so much pushback against startup-like pricing That would only makes sense if JetBrains were a startup. No one likes startup-like pricing for the sake of it- even on HN. Do you want 'startup-like pricing' for your car? I for one didn't like the pricing regime because it was retrogressive and changed what I understood to be a purchase into a short-notice rental.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - hhariri 11y ago
    Given JetBrains has been around for 15+ years, and given that it was a change in the model in moving to subscription, it was aimed to make the transition as smooth as possible for existing customers and that is why they get the 2nd year free.
- meddlepal 11y ago
  Exactly! This had to be one of the stupidest manufactured controversies I had seen. It's cool they listened and changed it I guess, but the subscription hate thing is ridiculous. Maybe some of these developers should step back and look at their own companies offerings before they start screaming... almost all of us are working on subscription software.
zoyo 11y ago
That's a funny way of looking at it. "I'm sorry baby, I'll never hit you again!" You know the old saying: There are no victims, only volunteers. As Mr. Stallman would say, proprietary software is for suckers. You guys using it are volunteering for such abuse. Nevermind the sweet promises. It will happen again. It always does.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

by oneJob 11y ago

LoneWolf 11y ago

My thoughts too, 7 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10239008 not many comments either. Come on, you were mad because you didn't like it, and now? I assume the silence means you are happy, come on! Show some love.

WorldWideWayne 11y ago
Why praise someone for doing the thing they should have done in the first place? That's like congratulating a cop for not beating up a random pedestrian. Actually, that's not even completely accurate - it's more like praising a car salesman for not charging you that extra $2,000 that you caught him tacking on. People should be praising themselves for complaining so loudly that they affected a positive change.
- erichmond 11y ago
  What I am praising is the fact they listened to their customer feedback, and came back with a plan that they feel is "better" and addresses many of the issues their customers had. I am not sure what you mean by "doing the thing they should have done in the first place", What was the thing "they should have done"? They did their own market analysis, they did what they thought was right at the time, their userbase disagreed, they incorporated feedback and adjusted. This is exactly what I want companies I support to do. If you are mad at them for not reading your mind as to how you want them to run their business, that seems a bit silly.
  - WorldWideWayne 11y ago
    I'm not mad at all. I just disagree that they should be praised for seeking rent and then reversing their decision. Where is the merit in that?
    - hhariri 11y ago
      The move to subscription has not been reverted. What's been done is adjustments to address some concerns customers had. And this has been done in response to customer concerns.
      - WorldWideWayne 11y ago
        Yeah, they did reverse it because now you can own the product after paying for a year's worth of rent. That's completely different from only being able to rent the product. But either way, there's still nothing praise-worthy here.

Zikes 11y ago

This post has only been up for an hour on HN, but there are 800+ comments on the blog post itself.

teacup50 11y ago

I'm burnt out. The change was horrible, and now they've walked it back -- yay, I guess, but why did they do something so customer hostile in the first place? JetBrains lost my trust, and I'm going to keep an eye on competitors.

smt88 11y ago

Consumers, for the most part, genuinely don't give a shit what happens to their data. It's sad but true. There was barely a blip when iCloud was hacked, just as one of many examples. The outcry was the minority there. As for Google shutting down a service: that's probably because it was a free service and wasn't making them any money. Was it stupid to shut it down instead of charging for it? Probably. But Google makes stupid business decisions pretty regularly, and they have the right to do so. In this case, the majority of people crying out were JetBrains customers. This isn't impressive, it's just baseline common sense.

dlandis 11y ago

Seems like a reasonable model, but I'm still surprised at how bad the previously announced strategy was. I think it's great that they listened to their customers in this case, but the fact that so many people at the company were in favor of the previous strategy still does raise some concerns for me.

hatsix 11y ago

Yay?! I didn't have a problem with the way they were pricing before. It matched nearly every other service I use, and it would have cost less (I guess webstorm cost a whole $20 more a year!). I just assumed that all of the people who were complaining before were the standard "Let's complain about things on the internet" people. Hence why they aren't showing up here to celebrate... they didn't actually care. Every dev I know IRL that uses JB software didn't care. 90% of them have it purchased for them by their company. I'm one of those who owns his own license, and I still don't care. In a place that is so startup-centric, I can't believe that there is so much pushback against startup-like pricing. In the other threads I'd have worried about being down-voted, but those individuals are likely busy creating controversy in some other thread.

sangnoir 11y ago
> In a place that is so startup-centric, I can't believe that there is so much pushback against startup-like pricing That would only makes sense if JetBrains were a startup. No one likes startup-like pricing for the sake of it- even on HN. Do you want 'startup-like pricing' for your car? I for one didn't like the pricing regime because it was retrogressive and changed what I understood to be a purchase into a short-notice rental.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- hhariri 11y ago
  Given JetBrains has been around for 15+ years, and given that it was a change in the model in moving to subscription, it was aimed to make the transition as smooth as possible for existing customers and that is why they get the 2nd year free.
meddlepal 11y ago
Exactly! This had to be one of the stupidest manufactured controversies I had seen. It's cool they listened and changed it I guess, but the subscription hate thing is ridiculous. Maybe some of these developers should step back and look at their own companies offerings before they start screaming... almost all of us are working on subscription software.

zoyo 11y ago

That's a funny way of looking at it. "I'm sorry baby, I'll never hit you again!" You know the old saying: There are no victims, only volunteers. As Mr. Stallman would say, proprietary software is for suckers. You guys using it are volunteering for such abuse. Nevermind the sweet promises. It will happen again. It always does.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]