As someone managing a small software edition company and selling yearly subscription licenses, I can totally get their business decision. Otherwise, you get the &quot;Microsoft Word 97&quot; effect, when people still use the same old software for 15 years, never upgrade, and complain about your software.<p>Having a recurring revenue is the best way to be able to manage a company, because it gives you a better view for your next years&#x27; budgets, and you can more easily plan investment and hirings.<p>What is wrong, is probably how jetbrain seems to change their pricing and businell model far too often, lacking direction, and pretending it&#x27;s for the customers (it&#x27;s only very indirectly for the customers benefit).
Besides, I wouldn&#x27;t mind paying whatever they want if they would just improve their release quality so that I don&#x27;t get afraid of breaking my project everytime I update.