I agree with (some) of this. Companies are always going to be free to find alternatives if they're motivated to do so, but the cost of this subscription model i

I agree with (some) of this. Companies are always going to be free to find alternatives if they're motivated to do so, but the cost of this subscription model is a drop in the bucket for a lot of larger firms, and there's nothing wrong with supporting a company that maintains and develops a critical piece of your infrastructure (in fact it's quite savvy). I sometimes worry that we've gotten too used to free things, whether those things are youtube videos, articles by journalistic institutions or pieces of software. I'm hardly an exception here -- I too wince when I see a paywall in front of an article, but people need to be able to sustain themselves when they create things that benefit others. It's hard the reconcile the paradox of wanting high quality things without paying for it.