Biggest problem I have is the need for a live Internet connection. We do all our work in an offline dev environment.
Now trying to get some licensing server installed in an Enterprise environment is a PITA.
How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
221–230 of 507 posts
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#222Polishing 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…
> Polishing and bug fixes cost money, but nobody wants to pay for that.
You pay for that when you buy the product - it comes with a year of updates.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#223I 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…
Many people are quite happy to pay for their tools, what they do not want is to be forced into a situation when it is pay for the tools this month or lose access to them.
Jetbrains could have avoided all this negative backslash by keeping the current licencing scheme in place and adding the subscription service as an option.
Again, think of it like buying a DVD over renting it on Netflix, most likely Netflix would be the cheaper option as with the exception of children's movies most movies/shows are not watched more than twice/thrice.
However we want to feel the ownership of something.
We do not want to be told that we must pay $5 for this exquisite hammer this month or be forced to go back to a 3 year old hammer.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#224The problem I have with subscription model for my tools is this: It removes the option for me to decide to not upgrade because the improvements are not worth the cost. Note that I have been upgrading my license most every year, but chances are I'll just make do with what I have next time around. If the current pricing model isn't viable for them, I'm sorry, but it is not my problem. It's already the most I pay for an…
> It removes the option for me to decide to not upgrade because the improvements are not worth the cost. The blog post stated this as a reason. They want to focus on quality instead of features to sell upgrade licenses. I was a bit put off that statement though since I expect bug fixes as part of my original purchase price.
> I was a bit put off that statement though since I expect bug fixes as part of my original purchase price.
You should expect that. But when it comes time to purchase the upgrade, would you do it ONLY for future bugfixes? Or for new features?
Most people would upgrade only if there were new features, because otherwise they'll just use their older version with whatever bugs it has that might not even effect them. JetBrains is a business after all...
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#225In the previous thread on the announcement I expressed some concerns ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165919 ). An employee responded: "I see this is turning into a conspiracy theory ) Fortunately, there's a little thing called competition that prevents raising rates at will without facing the consequences, and JetBrains is no exception: we're no monopoly" So the message first was "We did this for YOU!" and t…
That's misinterpreting the response - he was saying that they were not going to jack up prices arbitrarily. 'You can always go elsewhere' vs 'We aren't aiming to screw you over - you can always go elsewhere.' - there is a big difference.
Fair enough. Both of those interpretations are a very different message from "Look at the nice thing we did for you"... which was my point.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#226Moving to a subscription model for 1 thing is okay, perhaps 2, or even 3. But with every company gradually moving to subscription models, it is emptying out our wallets every month and removing more and more of our income to maintain the status quo.
From my own perspective, and I know this doesn't apply to all, but I cannot imagine I'm the only person with this viewpoint:
I'm sick of other developers saying things like: "You know what? For the amount developers earn, $X is a small price to pay." You're right, $X for a single piece of software is a small price. But when you add the cost of your MSDN license here, your JetBrains license there, your Xamarin university/license, O'Reilly Safari License, PluralSight license and countless other licenses and software purchases to do our jobs - all of which are gradually moving towards month-by-month subscription models with excessively large combined annual overheads, it cuts more and more into your budget... and not to forget that the income you make doesn't just pay for an ever revolving cycle of tools to maintain your competitiveness as these arguments seem to forget [unless you're still living in Mom's basement and all your income is expendable or can feed the endless software-as-a-service lifestyle]. It's also used to ensure that your kids get a good education so they can make their own valuable contributions to society; that you're able to live comfortably and not worry about where your next meal is coming from; that your family is safe and secure and well prepared for the unexpected; medical plans; retirement plans; mortgage; vehicle payments; the list goes on... all of which costs money - every month!
I'm growing tired of companies feeling like they can reach into my pocket month after month and take every spare penny for "services rendered." At what point will people turn around and say "Enough's enough! My money is mine!" I'm happy to buy products when they move me forward, but I hate paying monthly subscriptions on the off chance that you're going to continue provide updates that may or may not benefit me in the longer term.
As a company providing software, I'm not purchasing you as a service. I'm purchasing your product. When I work for a company that pays me every month, I'm selling myself to them as a service - to do their bidding and write the code they want. If I'm to pay for you as a service, then the money I'm paying you had better be providing what I need to do my job more effectively, just like if I pay a cleaner to come clean the house, I'm not paying for them to develop makeup products that benefit their other clients while I don't wear makeup. I want the option of buying the product that does help me do my job more effectively and then I'll hold on to the rest of my money and allocate it where that is the case.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#227The problem I have with subscription model for my tools is this: It removes the option for me to decide to not upgrade because the improvements are not worth the cost. Note that I have been upgrading my license most every year, but chances are I'll just make do with what I have next time around. If the current pricing model isn't viable for them, I'm sorry, but it is not my problem. It's already the most I pay for an…
> It removes the option for me to decide to not upgrade because the improvements are not worth the cost. The blog post stated this as a reason. They want to focus on quality instead of features to sell upgrade licenses. I was a bit put off that statement though since I expect bug fixes as part of my original purchase price.
Yeah, that's bullshit. I'd gladly pay for a maintenance release with only bug fixes considering the quality of the latest versions has tanked. I've already done it for the last two version of PHPStorm (each which has been more buggy than the previous with no great new features).
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
JetBrains produces a continuous stream of improvements to all of their tools, previously they would have to artificially hold some of the bigger changes back to justify the next big yearly version number increase. With subscriptions, this is no longer necessary, everyone can have the latest and greatest right away. And I do hope the next logical step is to offer an optional fully hosted service that has feature parit…
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.
Some of the comments propose granting a perpetual license after 1 year of subscription. I would go for that.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please... some of us need to get work done and are perfectly happy to pay someone else to give us good quality products. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's worth doing yourself.
Why not pay them to do it for you and also keep the ability to do it yourself, should you ever need it?
Because I have exactly zero interest in deviating from what I should be focusing on (my business, my product, my clients, my revenue stream) to go dork around with a text/code editor.
Doing so, in the context of a real working business with clients, projects, timelines, deadlines and deliverables would be irresponsible if you can simply pay a company for which that product IS their product and business to deliver what you need and support it.
I can see messing around with FOSS as a hobby but unless you are a huge company that can afford to lose clock cycles to your devs playing with FOSS or a medium size company for whom FOSS is a a business it just doesn't make sense.
The vast majority of software developers across all disciplines (there's a huge world outside of Silicon Valley, Web Dev and Mobile) have exactly zero need or interest in deviating from their mission to go fix their tools.
This is the same reason the vast majority of software developers (again, think outside web folk) have exactly zero interest in vim. It is an utter waste of time compared to point-click-go-go-go.
Re: How JetBrains Lost Years of Customer Loyalty in Just a Few Hours
#230Polishing 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…
Half the reason I haven't updated is that JetBrains hasn't been polishing. I'd pay for that, happily, but bugs sit unfixed for years while JetBrains rolls out entirely new (and similarly buggy) IDEs.