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

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

#321

Post by addicted »

malka wrote: post #139
cool-RR wrote: post #137

I see a lot of whining in this thread. If you think that an increase of $100/year in the price of a tool that you use every day, for, say, at least 5 hours daily as part of your job as software developer as a meaningful price increase, than the cost of your IDE is not close to being your biggest problem. Even taxi drivers invest more money than software developers in the tools that they use every day, and software de…

The price is not the problem. I simply do not want to rent the tools I use. I want to buy them.

So if instead of $100/yr they had raised the price to $500 but you "own" the software, you would have been okay with that?

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

#322

Post by killface »

Yeah, if you didn't see this coming, you haven't been keeping up. Their yearly upgrades? It's no coincidence that intellij 14 came out in 2014, 13 in 2013...

If you have kept up versions as I have, it's practically no different. If this means we get features sooner rather than waiting for a whole major version upgrade, I'm happy.

Yes, Adobe had a big clusterfuck when they did it, but you know who hasn't had as big of one? Microsoft Office. I subscribe to their office 365. 10 bucks a month for 5 computers, the whole office suite. I'll happily pay that.

And besides, there's always the community edition if for some reason your 120k/yr job doesn't let you afford 100 bucks per year...

People just have a meltdown anytime anything changes... chill the fuck out for a few minutes and let's see what happens.

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

#323

Post by Shish2k »

Navarr wrote: post #306
toyg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the "right" way to do it is to disable updates on license expiration, not just turn off a product you might have paid for since 2010. Maybe the best thing to do would be an initial payment worth, say, 6 months, followed by monthly renewals; if the renewal does not go through, updates stop. This would be closer to the current model, but would still switch most revenue (renewals) to the SaaS model.

I want to agree but the problem with that on this is that it can be gamed by buying one month, using that until a feature entices you, and then buying another month.

Which can be anti-gamed by charging $50 for new installs then $10/mo for each consecutive monthly renewal

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

#324

Post by mikeash »

cweagans wrote: post #150
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping prices the same while providing less for the money is still a change in the pricing model. Before, the choice after a year was to pay for an upgrade or keep using the old version. Now the choice after a year is to pay for a renewal or find a new tool entirely.

Did you previously pay the yearly fee to continue to get upgrades?

Sometimes.

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

#325

Post by mikeash »

Latty wrote: post #183
mikeash wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the solution then I guess I might as well get started with it now. Edit: oh, exactly one of their products has a Community Edition. Guess that's not much of an option after all, unless that's the one product you need.

It's definitely not all their products, but it's definitely higher than one too - PyCharm and IntelliJ both have Community Editions.

You're right. I was going off their "all products" list:

https://www.jetbrains.com/products.html?fromMenu

I guess it's not "all" products.

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

#326

Post by toyg »

Navarr wrote: post #306
toyg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the "right" way to do it is to disable updates on license expiration, not just turn off a product you might have paid for since 2010. Maybe the best thing to do would be an initial payment worth, say, 6 months, followed by monthly renewals; if the renewal does not go through, updates stop. This would be closer to the current model, but would still switch most revenue (renewals) to the SaaS model.

I want to agree but the problem with that on this is that it can be gamed by buying one month, using that until a feature entices you, and then buying another month.

At least you'll have paid for 6 months right away; and if you lapse, when you go to renew you pay for another 6 months upfront.

If you're going to all this trouble just to skimp £100 per year on your main development tool you're probably the type of customer who will simply not buy into a SaaS model anyway, so there is no point in chasing your pennies.

You could unofficially make the "skimping" into the reduced price option, removing the current "personal" licenses and removing complexity. Cheap "Personals" will pay a 6-months fee once a year or less, losing updates, and "Companies" will happily pay full whack (because they value predictability and opex vs capex) for the full monty. Win-win, and nobody gets hurt in the feelings.

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

#327

Post by mindcrime »

mreiland wrote: post #300
mindcrime wrote: post #210

We use a subscription model at Fogbeam, but here's the twist: all our software is open source, and you're free to use it as you like, with or without a subscription. So why buy a subscription at all? Because you get the kinds of things big companies care about: certification, maintenance, support, indemnification, somebody to sue if things don't work, a vendor to shift blame onto if the shit hits the fan, a discount…

I would like to see the software contract that includes indemnification for the software.

We don't have the final wording all worked out for all of that stuff. We've been pretty focused on product stuff for the past while, and only recently got to a point where we have a product actually available for sell, and we're still working on contracts / licenses and all that. But what I can tell you is that our approach will probably look a lot like what Red Hat does[1].

Basically, it's a guarantee that if you get sued for using our software (patent infringement, whatever) then we protect you from any fallout from that.

[1]: http://www.redhat.com/en/about/open-source-assurance

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

#328

Post by killface »

pixard wrote: post #270
aantix wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

I think (for me anyway) the problem isn't the price at all. It's the fact that if you let your subscription lapse you CANNOT use the product. In my case (small business) we have months of very low activity. Now if I let my subscription lapse then I lose access to the software and it becomes more expensive since I wouldn't have the existing customer discount anymore (presumably). I would easily pay double what I'm pay…

so don't fucking use it. if it's literally not valuable enough to justify 100/yr, just let it go and use eclipse or notepad or something.

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

#329

Post by JupiterMoon »

jacquesm wrote: post #213

I would like to encourage everybody that does not like the new licensing scheme of JetBrains to band together and produce either an open source product that is as polished so it can be used for free or, alternatively to take this apparently huge business opportunity and run with it. I never quite understood what makes people that make 100's of thousands of dollars per year so cheap that they would balk at paying a fe…

They would tend to own a lot of these tools. As in their spanner or their CNC mill does not phone home and then stop working if they fail to keep paying the monthly rent on it.

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

#330

Post by Nagyman »

btreecat wrote: post #291
cool-RR wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely about the price. If I told you you need to rent them, but the price for renting for the next 15 years is negligible, I don't think you'd have a problem with renting them. Now our only disagreement is on what constitutes "negligible".

No it is not about the price, it is about my dev tools needing to call the mother ship every month to make sure I am still a valid user. Just keep the option for a perpetual license thanks. Even if it means increasing the cost, I am fine with that. I just don't want to rent my tools as a professional.

Besides calling home, what motivation do they have to improve their tools under the subscription model? Upgrades have to be appealing enough to bother paying – built-in motivation to produce a superior product.

With subscriptions, they don't have to improve the software; it's guaranteed revenue as long as one wants to use the tool. Eventually a competitor might step in and create something better, but until then you're stuck paying whether or not the software is improving.

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