[andrewf]

JetBrains was initially going with a more traditional subscription model, and introduced the perpetual license fallback in response to negative feedback.

HN comments and the original announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10165334

The followup introducing the perpetual fallback license: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10278285

[renewiltord]

Yeah I was a bit unhappy but accepted it for what it was when it was announced. I'm glad other people complained. I really like the current form.