It doesn&#x27;t take a conspiracy. Humans follow their incentives.<p>Customers are incentivized to keep ponying up for a subscription, because the alternative is a costly transition to other tools.<p>JetBrains, like any other business, is incentivized to maximize profits and minimize costs.<p>Customers assign value to avoiding costly disruption. That means that JetBrains is incentivized to lower costs by reducing the amount of value they otherwise provide to customers.<p>This is the very definition of &quot;rent-seeking&quot; behavior, and it&#x27;s scummy.