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

#281

Post by Daishiman » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:12 PM UTC

cool-RR wrote: post #249

malka wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 isn't. I would pay twice as much as I did for PyCharm, but I want software that I can control which doesn't phone home to the mothership to see if I have the privilege of being able to use it for that month.

I don't want to open the travel laptop I keep stored for when I'm away from home in an airplane or the middle of nowhere and be interrupted because I can't contact a licensing server or whatever such bullshit.

If they want to raise prices, that's fine. But renting tools that are not hosted on the web, for myself and lot of other people, is just a big no-no.

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

#282

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #260

stoshe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A typical move to subscription based pricing LOWERS costs to the consumer, but the company gets the benefit of more predictable recurring revenues. That makes the pricing JetBrains puts out a little bit of a head-scratcher.

What typical ones are you thinking about? And are you American? Americans are bad at math. Companies selling to us know this and it's common for them to offer a monthly contract for a device with an expected life of three years as price/24 if they're feeling generous, and price/18 if they aren't. I think the worst one I ever saw was price/14, and people still bought it. TiVo has prices closer to the worse end of that…

I suspect your comment would get fewer downvotes and still be useful if you dropped the jab at the parent commenter's math abilities.

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

#283

Post by calgoo » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

rebootthesystem wrote: post #229

jordigh wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wha…

Its one of the reasons why I'm using OSX instead of Linux on my main machine. I do dual boot, but i always come back to OSX for work related stuff. So much easier to install Office 365 (Company Version) and use it directly locally. I could use Linux, and access Office in the Corp VDI session, but i hate the lag. So, in the end, for work, I have learned to pay for the product upfront and then play around during the weekends :)

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

#284

Post by manigandham » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:14 PM UTC

integraton wrote: post #242

manigandham wrote: post #135

Earlier 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.

> ...some of us need to get work done... There are whole ecosystems of developers and teams getting work done and building companies (including some of the biggest companies in the industry) without these applications, so they clearly aren't necessary to "get work done."

Never said it was necessary. Sorry if I implied that. Just don't see the point of the original post claiming how it never made sense.

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

#285

Post by newjersey » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #231

nadams wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I am a complete newbie so my perspective is inherently flawed but I am wary of installing anything on a Debian machine that I can't just get using aptitude (sudo apt-get install foo).

Correct me if I am wrong but isn't it possible to create a Debian repository server at Jet Brains that I can add to my aptitude sources list and then install Intelli J and stuff from the conventional command line interface? Why does Jet Brains insist on doing things the Net beans way with opening a web browser and downloading a binary every time?

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

#286

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #231

nadams wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#287

Post by toyg » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #266

sireat wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To continue the analogy, most woodworker's tools are 1) well over three years old, and 2) have consumable components which cost well over Jetbrain's highest subscription cost every year. Not to mention, once purchased, a woodworker won't get upgrades to their tools, or have problems with them fixed as part of their ongoing cost. Consider it a contribution to a team whose tools you obviously enjoy, to ensure both that…

If the problem is low revenue, they should just raise prices and be honest about it.

I mean, if you're already paying £100 for an IDE despite the wealth of free alternatives, you do it for a reason: because it's worth it. There might be a price point where it stops being worth it, but it's likely not £120 or even £200. You're already competing with free, so price is likely not much of a differentiator already.

Instead, they try to achieve a relatively modest increase by shoving a forced and fairly unjustified SaaS model down their existing customers' throats. That leaves a bad taste, so to speak. Instead of driving sales with innovation, they now drive it with fear (your tool will stop working! pay now!).

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

#288

Post by btreecat » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #266

sireat wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To continue the analogy, most woodworker's tools are 1) well over three years old, and 2) have consumable components which cost well over Jetbrain's highest subscription cost every year. Not to mention, once purchased, a woodworker won't get upgrades to their tools, or have problems with them fixed as part of their ongoing cost. Consider it a contribution to a team whose tools you obviously enjoy, to ensure both that…

Also, my hammer won't phone home to Lowes every month to make sure I have a valid subscription to hit things with it.

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

#289

Post by nitrogen » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

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…

I think it's the idea that their favorite lathe maker no longer lets them buy a lathe., only rent. If you stop paying for your lathe, someone comes into your shop and disables it.

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

#290

Post by HelloNurse » Fri, Sep 04, 2015, 4:19 PM UTC

The social cost of subscription-based offers can be enough to make users forfeit good products.

If a developer convinces a manager to buy a perpetual license of IntelliJ, mission accomplished: the developer will be able to use IntelliJ forever. Persuading the manager to spend more on IntelliJ by making a convincing case that an upgrade is worth the money is an optional campaign, reserved for a favorable moment (e.g. when being able to use a new feature would be very valuable) in a vague future.

If a developer convinces a manager to buy a yearly subscription to IntelliJ, the developer should expect to start using Eclipse after one year due to a cost reduction effort. Persuading the manager to spend more on IntelliJ is difficult (no expected updates), urgent (the software stops working rather than sliding into obsolescence) and a recurring unpleasantness.

Moreover, JetBrains makes the sort of luxury products that are bought when money is abundant and regretted (but still used and enjoyed) in times of poverty; forcing customers who cannot pay right now to eliminate JetBrains products from their daily workflow instead of keeping them as happy users and waiting for when they'll want to spend again is a gratuitous demolition of goodwill.