How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#231

Post by PaulHoule » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

nadams wrote: post #112

mikeash wrote: post #66

What bugs me about this is when I asked them about the change on Twitter and they kept trying to blow smoke up my butt about how it's better for everyone. Their first response was that it's cheaper than before. Except it's not. Did they think I wouldn't actually go look at the prices? Then they said it's better because you can jump in and out at will. Only need Product X for a month? Only pay for a month. Which is fi…

> Their first response was that it's cheaper than before. Except it's not. Did they think I wouldn't actually go look at the prices? Uh - their "everything" price is $20/month = $240/year (or $200 for the annual plan) (All renewal at current license price) PHPStorm - $129 PyCharm - $99 ReSharper Ultimate - $600 (no renewal price) If I were to purchase that with their old license it would cost me $828, with the new pl…

Yeah, Eclipse has the Linux GUI curse.

Linux users expect the GUI to be unusable so they split into the camps who (i) think Eclipse is the bee's knees or (ii) use vi.

The difference between IntelliJ and Eclipse is like night and day -- Eclipse fans think the plug-in feature is great but install one too many plugins and your Eclipse will get sick with pluginitis.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#232

Post by dkhenry » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:32 PM UTC

moe wrote: post #212

cwyers wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the pricing policy: https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox/ The $20 is for all products, Resharper alone is $11.90 a month or $119 a year.

So previously $119 would buy him infinite years. And now $119 buys him a single year. Sounds like a downgrade to me?

no $119 would buy him one year of updates, and he could choose not to update in the future if he didn't want to. If he chose to update on a regular basis, then he would still need to pay $119 every year

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#233

Post by vruiz » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:33 PM UTC

silvestrov wrote: post #178

Polishing and bug fixes cost money, but nobody wants to pay for that. People only want to pay for new shiny features. If IntelliJ doesn't get money because developers think "old version is good enough for me", then there is no money for bug fixing and for keeping the product alive. It would end up as abandonware like most apps on the iPhone App Store. I'd guess the IDE have now reached this "fully featured" milestone…

> I'd guess the IDE have now reached this "fully featured" milestone where most developers don't care to upgrade. So IntelliJ has to switch to a subscription model to survive.

Sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me and I doubt IntelliJ's sales are putting the company in any danger.

Even if they couldn't come up with new features, the programming languages and frameworks keep evolving and the tooling needs to catch up with that. But I can come up with a hundred things to improve from the top of my head, so I'm sure they can too.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#234

Post by tobltobs » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

cweagans wrote: post #21

You do realize that they haven't really changed their pricing model, right? They just changed how it's presented. It's always been a subscription if you want new features in an IDE (which most people do). I pay like $100/year for PHPstorm upgrades, and it's well worth the cost given the benefits that one receives from using the software (mostly in terms of productivity). Yes, renting software is a skeezy model. Yes,…

So leasing a car for 1000$ per year is the same as buying a car for $1000?

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#235

Post by xaqfox » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

nbevans wrote: post #220

It's really odd how the C# community took ReSharper to heart so easily and somewhat irreversibly. The amount of C# developers out there now that will literally turn down a job offer if ReSharper is not used at that shop. It is also the #1 complaint of even higher-end C# devs as to why they would never move to F#... because there is not ReSharper for it. Duh. It's sad they can't see that ReSharper is merely a symptom…

What flaws in the language does Resharper overcome? Does a language exist that causes you to never need to refactor code?

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#236

Post by codewithcheese » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

It seems there is a simple solution. You pay the subscription monthly, until after 1 year you own the current version. If you stop the subscription at that point you don't get rolling updates or SLA support.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#237

Post by aantix » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:37 PM UTC

anjanb wrote: post #67

chiph wrote: post #26

I think JetBrains miscalculated just how much people like the current licensing model. I liked their first model - I paid for it and just used it. The current model, with the yearly upgrade premium, I tolerated. I felt it was a scam (are they going to publish an update in the next year so I get my money's worth? Probably not) but I could deal with it. This new model doesn't work for me at all. As someone who bought h…

I agree with all your points. I have used jetbrains products for 15 years so I feel sad that this is how they are going to lose me and other customers. I was hoping they would come with an IDE for golang and I would buy that as well. Now, this is a big disappointment.

So your license price jumps from $89 to $120/yr and now you're no longer a customer? Do you not think their tools probably make up for that $120/yr in terms of your productivity?

If you struggle with Netbeans or Eclipse for an hour or two with something IntelliJ does easily, you've already paid for your license.

I don't understand arguing about peanuts; pay it the trivial increase and get on with the show of making real money. No wonder why so many startups fail.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#238

Post by balabaster » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

dkhenry wrote: post #232

moe wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So previously $119 would buy him infinite years. And now $119 buys him a single year. Sounds like a downgrade to me?

no $119 would buy him one year of updates, and he could choose not to update in the future if he didn't want to. If he chose to update on a regular basis, then he would still need to pay $119 every year

I'd read it that I would lose my "update" model and I'd have to go back to paying the full outright price again if I decided to skip an update.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#239

Post by moe » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

dkhenry wrote: post #232

moe wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So previously $119 would buy him infinite years. And now $119 buys him a single year. Sounds like a downgrade to me?

no $119 would buy him one year of updates, and he could choose not to update in the future if he didn't want to. If he chose to update on a regular basis, then he would still need to pay $119 every year

and he could choose not to update in the future if he didn't want to

Yes, that's what I mean by downgrade. This choice was taken away from him.

Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours

#240

Post by claar » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 3:39 PM UTC

This is a psychological issue for me.

I gladly entered JetBrain's "cattle pen", and pay yearly for the privilege of being "trapped" there. Whether I might want to leave doesn't cross my mind, because I like it there.

Now they're adding security at the gate. I still don't want to leave, but now it's obvious that I'm trapped. It just feels different, and I don't like it.