[shagie]

This is part of why I'm completely ok with Jetbrains subscriptions - they have a perpetual fallback license. When they transitioned from the "buy a version, use it forever" licensing approach to a subscription model they added the perpetual fallback license (likely after some spicy feedback from customers).

You can use whatever version you've had for a year forever.

So if you cancel your subscription, the old version still works (and is probably fairly functional).

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The problem that Jetbrains had before the subscription model change is that major upgrade versions (that you paid for) were driven by accounting needs rather than engineering. "Need more money?" - release the version that is currently getting built, even if it doesn't offer compelling value. "Got some neat things for the next version?" - hold off on releasing it to customers until the company needs more money.

The subscription model made it so that accounting had a stable and predictable revenue stream and engineering could release things as features were developed.

[skydhash]

This model makes the most sense for professional tools (IDEs, CAD, Office Suites,...). Like insurance or support contract. You don't lose everything the moment you want to shrink your spending budget. But for utilities (pdf readers, task managers,...), subscriptions feel like extortion.

[pseudalopex]

The problem was real. And update subscriptions are a good solution. But other update subscriptions allow perpetual use of the version at the end of the subscription. JetBrains products require downgrading to the year old version. And downgrading was not supported when I looked. This is a lock in tactic.