[teacup50]

It doesn't take a conspiracy. Humans follow their incentives.

Customers are incentivized to keep ponying up for a subscription, because the alternative is a costly transition to other tools.

JetBrains, like any other business, is incentivized to maximize profits and minimize costs.

Customers assign value to avoiding costly disruption. That means that JetBrains is incentivized to lower costs by reducing the amount of value they otherwise provide to customers.

This is the very definition of "rent-seeking" behavior, and it's scummy.