> JetBrains is a good example of this. JetBrains is an example of a subscription designed to damage your development process if you cancel. Rolling back to a

> JetBrains is a good example of this. JetBrains is an example of a subscription designed to damage your development process if you cancel. Rolling back to a year old IDE isn't reasonable. You should get the current version and all previous versions. Once a version is 5 years old they should release patches that strip out licensing / activation. > I realized that I was paying so much to upgrade my “perpetual license” software to the new version every year or 2 I have no problem with a subscription in terms of the cost. It's cancellation causing the loss of access to tools that I depend on that's the issue for me. JetBrains is the only subscription I pay for because if a project idles for a year then I'm at least into the territory where I can go back and work on it with the original tooling even if I've cancelled my subscription. I don't particularly like JetBrains' model, but it's half tolerable. They charge $289, $231, $173 for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd year on personal licenses for all products. IMO, make the 1st year $347 and then $173 after that and give a perpetual license for the current version. Updating every 3rd year and being 2 years out of date by the time you update would only save $100 per year over a 9 year cycle and isn't worth the hassle for anyone that actually uses the software regularly. However, having access to the current version of everything if I suddenly need to cancel tomorrow has a lot of value for me.