[thejosh]

JetBrains has it figured out, IMHO:

1/ Offer licenses to students, or community editions to get people hooked 2/ Professionals hired at a company want to use this, now they're use to it and have their workflow covered. Plus probably best tool for the job in many cases. (Their language support is fantastic). Cheap enough to just get through without requiring finance approval. 3/ Home use is also great, I've been paying since 2014 and am very happy.

It's like the Adobe model (but less evil, IMHO), where in the 90s/2000's every poor student pirated it, now they pay a licensing fee to use it on a monthly basis.

[omnimus]

Adobe - every student still pirates it and since Adobe tuned the price to be terrible (its yearly contract only and only buying whole collection makes sense) now people are moving away hard - or pirate it.

[thejosh]

Sorry, meant "now those who did (mostly?) mostly pay for it if they use it in a professional capacity". Adobe pricing is absolutely horrendous.

Same as Microsoft, trying to buy an outright copy of Office was an absolute mission and confusing UX once we managed to actually get a physical copy I can see why people get so confused and pay Microsoft money for things they don't need. (It was a grant that was only for outright purchases such as a laptop, printer, harddrive, Office license, not for ongoing licenses).