[johnnyanmac]

Programmers are peak "fine I'll do it myself" with a culture of freely sharing knowledge, so I both get it as a point to criticize and an honorable mindset.

With that in mind, I a fine paying for tools I need if I understand the service behind it is massive and hard to replicate. A less controversial example is IDE's. Visual Studio has a great free Suite and a justifiable pro edition to pay for (and enterprise, but I'll leave the costs of million dollar corporations out of this). Jetbrains is pay up front (unless you use Android Studio) but their model lets you keep the version you paid a year for. These are good balances between subscription and ownership.

Of course, these game engines are doing very heavy lifting, but it's never okay to retroactively change you you monetize product you already launched. On top of all that, this plan simply doesn't sound well thought out (or actively malicious if you want to go that direction).

[vanderZwan]

> Programmers are peak "fine I'll do it myself" with a culture of freely sharing knowledge, so I both get it as a point to criticize and an honorable mindset.

Tangent: I feel like you're selling many other professions a little short here. Farmers come to mind, although I admit growing up in the countryside makes me a little biased there.