"Will I be able to upgrade my perpetual license to a new perpetual license or renew my upgrade subscription? No. Major version upgrades for perpetual licenses to new perpetual licenses will no longer be offered as of November 2, 2015. As an existing customer, you will be able to switch your perpetual license to our new subscription based model with a discount."
Well let me be the first to say, this sucks. As a user (and lover) of Jetbrains products (pycharm, IDEA, phpstorm) over the years, I never though they would ever go down this path.
I don't like the idea that my IDE is a tool that will stop working if I stop paying the ransom for it. This model may be the future, but it's a very icky feeling that I can't purchase to own software that runs entirely on my desktop, since that's been the model for YEARS.
Paying annually for support and to receive upgrades feels very reasonable. My IDE ceasing to function because I've stopped paying annually does not.
Not the OP, but I'm also not really a fan of subscription model of any software products even though I'm OK with paying for upgrades every year. With subscription model I no longer own the software the moment I stopped paying, even if I already paid monthly fee to equivalent of perpetual license pricing.
But on the other hand, considering I'm already paying $158 for two of their products every year (IDEA and AppCode), being able to pay $149 (discounted rate) and also get a separate app for RubyMine and PyCharm seems like a very nice offer. (Since Ruby/Python plugins in IDEA always lacked few versions behind.)
Nevertheless, I'm sad that to see another one of my most-used software goes away from perpetual license to subscription model.
Good examples of the way to do this, include Cakewalk and Allegorithmic which both implement a form of pay-to-own. After enough payments, you own a product that you can keep using if you no longer need 'enhancements'.
Whilst software-as-a-service is great for many people, it's not a panacea and certainly not a replacement for people who just want a product that they buy once and can use when they like without further outlay.
Because right now, we can pay a one time fee and use the software as long as we want, without incurring any more cost in return for not getting updates or imposing a cost on JetBrains.
However, from November, that will no longer be possible. If Jetbrains decides, in 2016, to increase the license fee to $300 per year, or $500, then we will have 2 options: Pay it and continue to have access, or don't pay, and lose all access to the tools, despite the fact that we have already given you money. If I have a cashflow problem, I can no longer decide to stay with last year's version for a while, instead I lose access.
I'm sure you know this, I'm sure everyone at JetBrains knows this.
The license seems to say that if you stop paying, you can still use the most recent version as of when your subscription expired. So technically you could subscribe for one month, get the software, and keep using it until you saw a version that was compelling enough to upgrade to.
That's according to a post earlier in the thread from the guy I presume is from JetBrains. It's also similar to the license Epic had for Unreal Engine, before they got rid of the monthly fee.
You seem to be conflating the perpetual licence, which is what we have currently and will stop being available in November with the new subscription. If I do not move to the subscription model, I can continue to use my current version of PHPStorm, in perpetuity.
However, I cannot subscribe under the new terms, and keep using the software if I decide to stop subscribing. Earlier in this thread you suggested that we could subscribe for a month and keep using the software afterwards. This is incorrect. Once you stop subscribing, you lose the rights to use the software
That's the old licensing model: you had a perpetual license and 1 year worth of upgrade, you could buy more upgrades but if you didn't the last available version would keep working forever.
The whole point of the licensing change and the switch to a service is to remove the perpetual license. No money, no IDE.
If Jetbrains decides, in 2016, to increase the license fee to $300 per year, or $500,
Or even more likely (for an IDE that is ahead quite a lot): charge the same license fee, but don't supply any interesting new features.
This is one of my fundamental objections to the subscription model. In the perpetual license model, a company has to entice its customers every major version to shell out the money. How do you do this? By making the product even better. In the subscription model, that direct incentive is gone, the customer has to pay anyway.
JetBrains admit as much in a comment on their blog:
> On the other hand, we think we’ll be able to concentrate on quality more than trying to impress users with new features so they buy upgrades. Our products are more than feature-full and we believe the quality is something that can always be improved.
Translation: We've run out of things that we think you'll actually want to pay for, so we've decided to force you to pay instead.
It's really a shame :(, there's a lot of things that I can still think of, such as a decent Java profiler, a feature competing with JRebel (or far better DCEVM support), etc.
One of the things I liked about the previous model was that I could continue using an older version of the software, assuming it met my needs and evaluate future planned features and future versions before deciding to purchase an upgrade or new license. If I don't renew, I don't get support and I can't use the new features in the new version - but I can still use the software I purchased in the state it was in.
If I'm understanding correctly, there's no option not to upgrade and continue using an old version of the product under the new model - the instant you stop paying, the product can no longer be used (after the month has finished). Personally this makes me feel like I don't 'own' the software anymore - instead, I'm just renting it.
I'm also interested to see if IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate will continue to offer the other language plugins (PHP, Python etc) that allows it to do what the other IDEs do under this pricing model.
I'd have no problem with this pricing approach if it was available alongside the existing system - so developers who use many different languages can use the subscription service if they feel it offers better value for them. Developers who prefer the previous model can opt to continue renewing annually to receive support and updates. I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed to see JetBrains forcing everyone down this path once their existing licenses have expired.
If you have an existing perpetual license, you can use it infinitely, just as the license agreement stated when you purchased it.
We do however offer a switch to the new model if you like it and if you're interested in new versions that your perpetual license doesn't cover. If you do switch to the new model, you pay as long as you need to use a tool, and you always get the latest version.
IntelliJ Ultimate will continue to offer language plugins, nothing changes in this regard.
> If you have an existing perpetual license, you can use it infinitely, just as the license agreement stated when you purchased it.
My understanding of the agreement is that you can use the software infinitely with the version that was available on the last day of the subscription term.
As languages and frameworks change, it seems inevitable that everyone who wants to continue working with the latest stable version will be forced to subscribe via the Toolbox (because the renewal of the perpetual license is no longer supported), at which point they no longer own the software they are paying for.
On the other hand, as languages and frameworks change, they will not necessarily be supported by your current IDE. In this case, with a perpetual licensing model you're simply left with a license that you don't use anymore, and you're buying a new license to another IDE. With subscriptions, you switch between them as necessary: either by cancelling subscription to one of them and subscribing to another or by maintaining a subscription to all IDEs (which will also be available starting Nov 2.)
> On the other hand, as languages and frameworks change, they will not necessarily be supported by your current IDE. In this case, with a perpetual licensing model you're simply left with a license that you don't use anymore, and you're buying a new license to another IDE.
I'm not sure I really follow this bit, would you mind clarifying?
I currently have a perpetual license for PhpStorm. Throughout the year, I'm aware many RFCs are created for the PHP language which may or may not be accepted and be incorporated into the language. Currently, I feel pretty confident in knowing that if a language change is made, the PhpStorm developers will update the IDE to support it and I'll be able to download the new version at no extra cost (assuming it was released during the year following the day I purchased the perpetual license).
Would there ever be a situation where this is not the case? Surely PhpStorm will always support the latest version of PHP, unless you're planning on a separate Php7Storm IDE or something?
Your understanding of how perpetual licenses with upgrade subscriptions work is correct.
Also, you can still be pretty confident that as a language support by an IDE (PhpStorm in your case) evolves, new versions will be supported by this very IDE, and we don't have any plans to release a separate Php7Storm :)
I was referring to a different kind of change where you might switch from PHP to Ruby, from C# to Java. C# and PHP are naturally not the best combination to support in the same IDE, meaning you might switch your tools as you go from language to language.
> Also, you can still be pretty confident that as a language support by an IDE (PhpStorm in your case) evolves, new versions will be supported by this very IDE, and we don't have any plans to release a separate Php7Storm :)
But you can also be confident that 5 years in the future, if you stop paying you will have only 1 choice:
To use the version that supported PHP 7, a deprecated, unsecure and phased out version (or at least, that's what I expect from PHP 7 by the year 2020).
In the past you had the peace of mind that you could continue using the version that supported PHP <current - 1> if you stopped paying.
That peace of mind was one of the most important features of PhpStorm, a feature not implemented in the software, but in the licensing terms.
Languages dont change that fast, this is more about screwing more money out of the client base, dont try and pass it off as a benifit.
I just bought 2 more phpstorm corporate licences last week, for a trial to see if my two top guys like it, with a view to a departmental rollout. Now im going to have to unload that project as we could never justify a model like this. Where we would lose access to our tools if decide to cut back on the tools budget for a while or stretch it out a bit.
According to the post you replied to, if you decide to cut back on the tools budget, you could still continue using the version that was released on the last day of your subscription. You just wouldn't get updates.
I believe you have misunderstood the grand-parent post.
the agreement is that you can use the software infinitely with the version that was available on the last day of the subscription term.
Is true for the old licensing model, but not the new model.
As far as I can tell (but JetBrains' attempts to spin this are making it hard to find a definitive statement) if you stop paying your monthly fee, you have to stop using the IDE.
According to the post you replied to, if you decide to cut back on the tools budget, you could still continue using the version that was released on the last day of your subscription. You just wouldn't get updates.
You need to stop living in the Jetbrains marketing department dream world and check back into reality. Losing access to development tools for code that you've already written is not an option. That's why people don't mind paying big chunks of money for good developer tools upfront. Offering a subscription service for dabblers is fine, but not offering a perpetual license alternative is pure insanity.
"Take it or leave it" is not a choice, it's an ultimatum. Please stop presenting this as as something you can use "if you like it" - you're completely discontinuing the old license model and only offering rental of your products starting in November.
Overall, this is a fairly hefty price hike with "reasonable" prices grandfathered in for current customers. Along with the price hike, you're actually delivering a less useful product as well - renting software is not worth as much to me as buying a perpetual license. Judging by the other responses here, I'm not alone in that. Grandfathering in existing users might seem like a good way to appease us, but we aren't stupid.
Jetbrains has always been good to me. I like your products and recommend them to other developers. If this licensing/pricing change goes through as-is, I will not recommend Jetbrains products any more. You talk a lot in the blog post about how great this new licensing model is for us - if you're serious about any of that, give us a real choice. Offer the old model alongside this one and see which one we customers find to be more useful. Anything less would be an admission that, better or not, you're forcing these changes on us without any concern for what we want.
Suggestion: if a customer pays for an annual subscription of the software, grant them a perpetual license for the corresponding major milestone version of that product. For instance if I paid for an annual subscription of IntelliJ in 2015, grant me a free perpetual license for IntelliJ 14.
This would be a great compromise, but I suspect that part of moving to the subscription model would be to do away with "one major version release per year" entirely and put out more frequent releases.
It's a tough position for Jetbrains. I've got a lot of sympathy, the annual release + purchase model is very limiting - but changing to a subscription model comes with its own problems that you can't just brush under the rug by offering a promotional price and talking about flexibility.
There is no promotional price, they're charging twice the price they charged in the past, ex. PhpStorm was $49 USD/upgrade, but now it is $99 USD/year.
if anyone from jetbrains here, in India it is showing prices using hindi (devanagari) numerals which are no longer in common use, even when text is in Hindi, most people will not even understand it. Would recommend to regular numerals.
I'm actually quite upset about this. I love PyCharm and I've always upgraded to most recent major version because even though I didn't necessarily need all the new features, I wanted to support JetBrains for making such great software.
So now I'm stuck using PyCharm 4.x forever unless I pay a monthly fee to upgrade. And if I stop paying I lose access to my IDE? Truly an awful way to treat loyal customers.
I can only hope that JetBrains abandons this new SaaS model or has some plan to allow users to purchase either a perpetual license or a subscription a-la Microsoft Office.
If not, then I hope Atom or Sublime Text get some robust debugging plugins for Python like PyCharm has.
I agree, im a cLion and a PhpStorm licensee, and this is a disaster. Im going to have to start moving back to netbeans.
We where about to kit out our entire department with phpstorm but now its going to be really really hard to justify this. This is nothing about being more convient for customers, its about screwing more money out of people. I am very very disapointed.
Except that before November 2nd a company could pay $199 once and never again until they felt the need to upgrade.
Following November 2nd, a company has no choice but to cough up the yearly fee or the software stops working and the developers can't do any work without changing the software they use.
And no tool available if we decide not to pay the subscription one year. This is all about forcing companies and licensees into continious payments, its not extending thier choice its severly restricting it. I cannot justify this to my board, as it takes all control over our costs out of our hands and puts us at the mercy of jetbrains pricing policies.
And no tool available if we decide not to pay the subscription one year. This is all about forcing companies and licensees into continious payments, its not extending thier choice its severly restricting it. I cannot justify this to my board, as it takes all control over our costs out of our hands and puts us at the mercy of jetbrains pricing policies.
Is it hard to justify because the department was not going to get regular updates (so you'd half the cost by say, only updating every two years)? If they were going to get yearly updates I can't see the downside other than psychological.
The main issue in places where I work would be that it totally eliminates options.
Under the old model:
- If the company moves away from a particular technology they can just keep an unsupported, but legal, license for the IDE in case they need to fix bugs, etc.
- If the company needs to improve cashflow it can defer upgrades
- If JetBrains goes out of business, you can keep using the IDE
- If JetBrains discontinues the product, you can keep using the IDE
- If JetBrains stops delivering worthwhile upgrades, you stop paying to upgrade.
- If JetBrains decides to unreasonably increase the upgrade price you stop paying. (edit: Added)
The benefits of the new model are:
- It's easier to account for the licensing cost as OpEx rather than CapEx, which matters to some businesses.
- It's easier to adjust your license costs in-line with your headcount. Hire some contractors? Add a couple of licenses. Downsizing that team? Drop some licenses.
Some organisations will consider that to be a beneficial trade-off, but many won't.
It's pretty cool to finally have a discount option to subscribe to all of the JetBrains products. When my existing IntelliJ license free upgrade period expires I'll probably subscribe to the "all products" option. That said, it's a bit upsetting they don't seem to offer corporate perpetual licenses anymore. It's a lot easier to justify the expense when it could be a one-time expense. Suddenly having your critical work tools stop working (for instance, during a budget freeze) is somewhat unacceptable.
Yes, the change applies to corporate licenses, too. As a bonus for them, there's a transparent model of discounts based on number of licenses and term of payment (https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox/#commercial)
We're used to helping users of commercial licenses who are faced with delayed payments in their companies, and I'm sure we'll be doing this with the new model as well.
I'm already in 10 subscription services, from Dropbox and iCloud to Abobe, music plugins, etc. How much worse would it be in the future, when we'd regularly have to fork $500 per month or so (rent money in most of the world) just to keep using our software?
The situation reminds me of this part from Ubik by Philip K. Dick:
Back in the kitchen he fished in his various pockets for a
dime, and, with it, started up the coffeepot. Sniffing the - to
him - very unusual smell, he again consulted his watch, saw
that fifteen minutes had passed; he therefore vigorously
strode to the apt door, turned the knob and pulled on the
release bolt.
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll
pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the
knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he
informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to
pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase
contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it
he had found it necessary to refer to the document many
times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and
shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless
steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the
bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I
guess I can live through it.”
A knock sounded on the door. “Hey, Joe, baby, it’s me,
G. G. Ashwood. And I’ve got her right here with me. Open
up.”
“Put a nickel in the slot for me,” Joe said. “The
mechanism seems to be jammed on my side.”
A coin rattled down into the works of the door; it swung
open and there stood G. G. Ashwood with a brilliant look on
his face. It pulsed with sly intensity, an erratic, gleaming
triumph as he propelled the girl forward and into the apt.
On top of the money going out periodically, it's about the cognitive load it places on the customers. I have enough decisions to make every day; additional services to consider adds the amount of time I need to think about writing off certain subscriptions from my taxes, whether or not I renew, time to make sure my credit card is up to date, check to make sure my subscription doesn't require when I'm on vacation without Internet and want to code, etc. A one-time purchase loads all of that into a single occurrence where I need that product instead of bringing it up at a calendar-determined interval.
My company uses WebStorm regularly because it's a solid IDE for Linux; I've heard of Visual Studio Code running on Linux; have people found that comparable?
If they're interested in doing this for the customer's sake, they should offer the customer a choice. If they're ramming it down people's throats, then they're really just doing it for their wallets.
On the flip side - IntelliJ comes out with a new version every single year, and if you don't upgrade you are kind of screwed (At least as someone who codes latest cut of Scala)
So not a big change to my wallet, but it does make me sad a little.
Yes, I still use an old copy of ReSharper at home. I don't use C# often enough to justify paying every year and I'm quite content to sit on an older version of the IDE & its plugins because I rarely boot into Windows anyway.
Still using VS2010 although I'm in the works to move to VS2015 -- skipped 2012 and 2013 entirely.
I also have phpStorm but I didn't upgrade this year as I'm not doing as much PHP development anymore. However, I still use it to make changes to old code bases.
The difference is that the new purchases provided a strong incentive to JetBrains to make their software better. If the new version doesn't add anything useful, people wouldn't upgrade.
Now you have to keep paying whether they add features or not.
OTOH, if the subscription price is substantially lower than the pre-subscription purchase price, JetBrains has to keep improving faster than the competition long enough to get you to keep buying the subscription for several cycles instead of switching to a competing option or they are losing money from going from outright purchase to subscription.
But it isn't unless you purchase the bundle with every application, the worst offender is WebStorm, with a price of 99 USD/year vs the price of 29 USD/upgrade it had in the past.
> But it isn't unless you purchase the bundle with every application
The initial buy-in is cheaper for many products than it was previously, so for new developers they have to have some ability to retain people to even break even with subscription licensing.
The annual subscription seems to be more expensive than the current per-upgrade add-on price for most products, though. And, of course, there are some, like WebStorm, where the annual subscription price is more even the new-purchase price under the old model.
As someone who mostly uses PyCharm and doesn't do web work, I guess this will have no effect on me for quite a while. Almost all the new PyCharm features I've noticed in 4.5 have had to do with web frameworks, none of which I use.
I am struggling to see how this benefits the consumer.
I read that whole release wondering if they actually believed that this was some sort of reaction to consumer demand or if they just think people are incredibly ignorant.
No thanks.
Surprised I didn't see a tweet that read:
"Dear JetBrains. I loved buying your product so much I want to do it EVERY month!"
Personally, as a polygot developer who works a lot in both Visual Studio with ReSharper and IntelliJ, this is an overall cost savings for me and simplifies things a lot. Instead of paying my $99/yr to renew IntelliJ, and another $129/yr to upgrade ReSharper - I can switch to the $149/yr 'everything included` plan and get a couple tools I don't already have (CLion being a big one).
If you're the kind of person who doesn't maintain their existing S&M subscription then it will end up costing you more, but typically this will break even for people that do regularly maintain them.
EDIT: Am I honestly getting downvoted because I'm not hopping aboard the wold-is-ending-because-subscriptions-are-bad circlejerk? I expect this kind of behavior on Reddit, not HN.
It's not like I'm telling anyone "you're wrong" for not liking the changes, but I certainly hope I'm allowed to state my opinion too.
This is a short-sighted view. JetBrains now controls pricing, and the relationship itself is coercive.
This means that you have no control over pricing, and that JetBrains doesn't need to worry about whether you'll renew year-to-year if they don't produce upgrades that make your renewal worthwhile.
Long-term mutually beneficial economic relationships are rarely built on top of coercive models that give one party such an enormous advantage.
I am having trouble understanding this viewpoint. For my position, I buy PyCharm Professional license, paying about $50 for each one year license. I plan to keep buying that license every year to get upgrades. To me, I end up paying the same price every year. If I want to try a tool for a month I can pay a few dollars for it, then let it go. To me, that's an advantage.
I am curious about "JetBrains now controls pricing". Haven't they always? If they raised their price outrageously for yearly upgrade model, they would lose customers, so that's true of new and old system. I have control of whether I pay their price or not, but they get to control the price, as always.
I understand to some degree that losing access to a tool is an inconvenience, but it doesn't strike me as a terrible burden. It's all just a view into the code, there's nothing irreplaceable about it. So renting compared to having guaranteed permanent access is a loss, but it doesn't seem that awful - but that's very different person to person.
Anyway, I am legitimately curious to hear more about this viewpoint. I kind of get it but don't have the strong visceral reaction to it as many others on here. Is it a use case difference, of people who skip upgrades versus those who don't and pay every year? Or is it fundamentally a philosophical stance on own versus rent?
If you are on the subscription and jetbrains sudenly hikes the price beyond your pain point, then you lose the tool completly, you cant even run the out of date versions. Under the old scheme you could just stop paying the upgrade and not get any new versions, but still carry on using the product.
> If you are on the subscription and jetbrains sudenly hikes the price beyond your pain point
Certainly a reasonable concern, it'd be nice if they implemented some kind of pricing guarantee. It sure wouldn't alleviate the concerns of everyone, but I think it'd go a long way towards showing goodwill.
> JetBrains doesn't need to worry about whether you'll renew year-to-year if they don't produce upgrades that make your renewal worthwhile.
Sure they do: the languages JetBrains IDEs support are also supported by other IDEs, free and paid. If your renewal doesn't leave you in a better position than the other alternatives on the market, you'll leave for some other tool.
> I bet you think cable TV is a bargain too considering the literally thousands of channels you receive...
Why are you putting words in my mouth? I explicitly do not pay for cable because it is outrageously expensive and I watch a fraction of what I am forced to pay for.
I already pay more for these tools I use than I would be paying under the new plan, and I've been looking at buying CLion too. This is a net savings for me, personally.
I am sure (much like the cable company does with "introductory" rates) that JetBrains was careful to set an initial price point that makes this a competitive offer.
The problem (as better stated elsewhere) is that the relationship is changed going forward. If they decide to raise the rates you are now left with the decision to continue at a less advantageous rate or have no product at all.
In addition, you assume that a major release per year is an inevitability. There may very well be no compelling reason to update... but it won't matter in this instance because you will pay no matter what.
Fortunately, there's a little thing called competition that prevents raising rates at will without facing the consequences, and JetBrains is no exception: we're no monopoly.
I'm sure different product teams here at JetBrains will adapt to the new model in a different way. My hope is that the change will contribute to a focus switch from a race to provide new features to ensuring better stability, performance and UX.
"Fortunately, there's a little thing called competition that prevents raising rates at will without facing the consequences, and JetBrains is no exception: we're no monopoly."
Should add this to the press release. Would make me feel lucky to be a customer...
It doesn't take a conspiracy. Humans follow their incentives.
Customers are incentivized to keep ponying up for a subscription, because the alternative is a costly transition to other tools.
JetBrains, like any other business, is incentivized to maximize profits and minimize costs.
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.
This is the very definition of "rent-seeking" behavior, and it's scummy.
> If they decide to raise the rates you are now left with the decision to continue at a less advantageous rate or have no product at all.
I'm not left with any such decision, they have explicitly stated in their FAQ that the 'existing customer' rates will continue indefinitely as long as the subscription is maintained. Sure, this means if I cancel I lose my special pricing, I'm not blind, but I don't see it happening.
> In addition, you assume that a major release per year is an inevitability.
I don't assume any such thing. I do not renew my licenses every year solely for the purpose of getting major new releases, point versions of current releases are part of the S&M as well, and getting left without bugfixes or support is not an option.
That's an odd interpretation of snuxoll's meaning. Presumably he likes getting access to tools he can usefully use, not "thousands of channels" he doesn't care about. He gets more tools that benfit him for less than he is currently paying. So I'm going with the assumption snuxoll meant that and he's not saying "I'm impressed by shiny things".
> 9. Can I use my personal license on multiple machines?
> You may install the license on more than one machine but it may be used on only one machine at a time. To run multiple installations simultaneously, each instance requires a separate license.
Will I still be able to run multiple instances of ReSharper on the same machine? This is pretty essential to my workflow. For example, I have three instances of VS2015 open at the moment: One for my Unity project, another for a C# plugin, and a third for the installer. ReSharper runs fine in all of them.
I can also run these on my Windows machine while having IDEA open on my Mac. (Actually the Windows machine is a Parallels VM, but same difference.) Will this capability go away? That would be unfortunate.
This is a good question. I usually have multiple PyCharm instances running and have never had a problem. I never thought about it until my wife started up PyCharm on my other computer and I got a notice saying another computer on the network was using a license and one of us needed to quit.
JetBrains needs to reassure us multiple instances are ok on same machine and across VMs. Will running the IDE in OS X and also a guest Linux VM look like multi-machine use? If so, that's really a bad flaw in licensing.
I was under the impression that they treat a VM like a separate machine - but now I'm not sure. I started IDEA in OSX and a Windows 10 VM on the same machine ten minutes ago, and so far neither instance has complained. I know IDEA has complained when I've run it on the Mac and my ThinkPad.
If this is legit and I can run IDEA on the host machine and in one or more VMs on the same machine, that would be a very good thing for multiplatform developers.
Nothing is changing as far as multi-machine or multi-instance usage is concerned. JetBrains products talk on the network periodically to find if another instance is running on a different computer and will force you to close one of them, you can run as many instances on the same computer without any issues.
If you want to fix this and regain some of the respect that you've lost in the past few hours, here's my suggestion.
Keep the subscription model. Set the non-discounted prices for a year's subscription at the same price level that perpetual license upgrades were. The monthly prices can be higher, maybe 20% more for a year billed monthly than annually. Offer a 10% grandfathered discount to apologize to your current customers for forcing them onto a subscription model. Don't offer any kind of promotional discount on the "all the Jetbrains" package deal - it's already underpriced. I think that this is a reasonable compromise that allows switching to a subscription model without screwing over either old or new customers.
Additionally, be honest. Many of your customers and most of your users are developers. We understand the upsides and downsides of a subscription model from both perspectives. Trying to spin away those downsides will backfire and leave us feeling taken advantage of. You've spent many years building up all this developer goodwill, it would be a shame to lose it over something like this.
If this change is so beneficial to users - lets put it to the test. JetBrains - put up public voting (which you do not have control over) and let us vote on which licensing deal we like more: old one or new one. Then we can talk if this is really something that developers really want.
Honestly if the pricing was better and some of the smaller tier plans let me use more products, I might be good with it. But this is literally the same cost for less product unless I want to pay more to get everything.
My department (for the most part) has a "no subscription" policy when it comes to most things, especially tools. I love using ReSharper and 0xDBE (possibly the number two application in my toolbox), but it will be hard to justify this to management. If you offered a perpetual license after 12 months, or kept both SAAS and the perceptual license(you could charge quite a bit more in this case) it would be excellent.
Edit: If you charged me 10 bucks a month for 0xDBE I wouldnt be able to get it approved even on a good day. Charge us 500 a year then the check would be cut that afternoon.
I am writing to express my thorough disappointment with the decision for Jetbrains to switch to a subscription based model.
While I understand the need for businesses to monetize, I feel that this monetization strategy is completely over looking the needs and desires of your historically loyal user base. I could understand this decision if your products were serviced-based or hosted (i.e. cloud) solutions, but as a stand-alone, desktop software this decision only serves to benefit one party.
Not only are you questioning historically loyal users by continuously asking them to show their support for your product, you are literally devaluing your product by requiring me to repurchase it on a recurring basis. No longer do I have the option to purchase a high-value, life long, perpetual license for your product. I do not understand how Jetbrains can drag themselves to the ranks of often, lackluster subscription based software.
I have long been a loyal and vocal advocate for Jetbrains software and customer service. Your software does make my job easier and I do enjoy using it. Your customer support and involvement with your loyal community has long been top notch. I often go out of my way to explain why I love using your products, like Webstorm and PHPStorm, and have convinced many people to switch to Jetbrains. After this decision, I have no desire to continue advocating your historically incredible software and intend to make it very clear to potential users of how you’ve decided to treat loyal users.
This decision shows a lack of empathy for the community you have worked so hard to build and I am extremely concerned about your future considerations of myself and the rest of the community. Unless Jetbrains decides to amend this new policy with consideration for traditional, perpetual based licenses, I will no longer be purchasing new offerings. I will use the current version of software. When I feel they are no longer suitable for use, I will look for alternatives offering perpetual licenses or simply use a text editor.
Again, your software does make my job easier and I do enjoy using it, but I want to make it clear that I do not need to you your software. There are plenty of acceptable alternative IDE's and, of course, I can always use a standard text editor.
I hope Jetbrains can recognize the error of their ways and address this issue in response to the community. I want to continue enjoying your products and advocating for a historically incredible brand.
Dude - just no! Stop making me rent desktop tools which ought to be just there after I pay for them. I will not be upgrading PyCharm and PHPStorm annual after this. It will happily stay in the old version. Even though my cost of $49 that I paid last year is still the same in this pricing model, but instead of that price being the norm, it is qualified with a double asterix.- as in for existing users.
So new users are getting shafted an extra 30 bones on top of what I pay. So in solidarity with new users, thanks but no thanks. Pretty bogus if you ask me.
113 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadWell let me be the first to say, this sucks. As a user (and lover) of Jetbrains products (pycharm, IDEA, phpstorm) over the years, I never though they would ever go down this path.
Paying annually for support and to receive upgrades feels very reasonable. My IDE ceasing to function because I've stopped paying annually does not.
But on the other hand, considering I'm already paying $158 for two of their products every year (IDEA and AppCode), being able to pay $149 (discounted rate) and also get a separate app for RubyMine and PyCharm seems like a very nice offer. (Since Ruby/Python plugins in IDEA always lacked few versions behind.)
Nevertheless, I'm sad that to see another one of my most-used software goes away from perpetual license to subscription model.
Good examples of the way to do this, include Cakewalk and Allegorithmic which both implement a form of pay-to-own. After enough payments, you own a product that you can keep using if you no longer need 'enhancements'.
Whilst software-as-a-service is great for many people, it's not a panacea and certainly not a replacement for people who just want a product that they buy once and can use when they like without further outlay.
However, from November, that will no longer be possible. If Jetbrains decides, in 2016, to increase the license fee to $300 per year, or $500, then we will have 2 options: Pay it and continue to have access, or don't pay, and lose all access to the tools, despite the fact that we have already given you money. If I have a cashflow problem, I can no longer decide to stay with last year's version for a while, instead I lose access.
I'm sure you know this, I'm sure everyone at JetBrains knows this.
However, I cannot subscribe under the new terms, and keep using the software if I decide to stop subscribing. Earlier in this thread you suggested that we could subscribe for a month and keep using the software afterwards. This is incorrect. Once you stop subscribing, you lose the rights to use the software
The whole point of the licensing change and the switch to a service is to remove the perpetual license. No money, no IDE.
Or even more likely (for an IDE that is ahead quite a lot): charge the same license fee, but don't supply any interesting new features.
This is one of my fundamental objections to the subscription model. In the perpetual license model, a company has to entice its customers every major version to shell out the money. How do you do this? By making the product even better. In the subscription model, that direct incentive is gone, the customer has to pay anyway.
> On the other hand, we think we’ll be able to concentrate on quality more than trying to impress users with new features so they buy upgrades. Our products are more than feature-full and we believe the quality is something that can always be improved.
Translation: We've run out of things that we think you'll actually want to pay for, so we've decided to force you to pay instead.
Not every compelling feature is implemented with code.
If I'm understanding correctly, there's no option not to upgrade and continue using an old version of the product under the new model - the instant you stop paying, the product can no longer be used (after the month has finished). Personally this makes me feel like I don't 'own' the software anymore - instead, I'm just renting it.
I'm also interested to see if IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate will continue to offer the other language plugins (PHP, Python etc) that allows it to do what the other IDEs do under this pricing model.
I'd have no problem with this pricing approach if it was available alongside the existing system - so developers who use many different languages can use the subscription service if they feel it offers better value for them. Developers who prefer the previous model can opt to continue renewing annually to receive support and updates. I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed to see JetBrains forcing everyone down this path once their existing licenses have expired.
We do however offer a switch to the new model if you like it and if you're interested in new versions that your perpetual license doesn't cover. If you do switch to the new model, you pay as long as you need to use a tool, and you always get the latest version.
IntelliJ Ultimate will continue to offer language plugins, nothing changes in this regard.
My understanding of the agreement is that you can use the software infinitely with the version that was available on the last day of the subscription term.
As languages and frameworks change, it seems inevitable that everyone who wants to continue working with the latest stable version will be forced to subscribe via the Toolbox (because the renewal of the perpetual license is no longer supported), at which point they no longer own the software they are paying for.
On the other hand, as languages and frameworks change, they will not necessarily be supported by your current IDE. In this case, with a perpetual licensing model you're simply left with a license that you don't use anymore, and you're buying a new license to another IDE. With subscriptions, you switch between them as necessary: either by cancelling subscription to one of them and subscribing to another or by maintaining a subscription to all IDEs (which will also be available starting Nov 2.)
I'm not sure I really follow this bit, would you mind clarifying?
I currently have a perpetual license for PhpStorm. Throughout the year, I'm aware many RFCs are created for the PHP language which may or may not be accepted and be incorporated into the language. Currently, I feel pretty confident in knowing that if a language change is made, the PhpStorm developers will update the IDE to support it and I'll be able to download the new version at no extra cost (assuming it was released during the year following the day I purchased the perpetual license).
Would there ever be a situation where this is not the case? Surely PhpStorm will always support the latest version of PHP, unless you're planning on a separate Php7Storm IDE or something?
Also, you can still be pretty confident that as a language support by an IDE (PhpStorm in your case) evolves, new versions will be supported by this very IDE, and we don't have any plans to release a separate Php7Storm :)
I was referring to a different kind of change where you might switch from PHP to Ruby, from C# to Java. C# and PHP are naturally not the best combination to support in the same IDE, meaning you might switch your tools as you go from language to language.
But you can also be confident that 5 years in the future, if you stop paying you will have only 1 choice:
To use the version that supported PHP 7, a deprecated, unsecure and phased out version (or at least, that's what I expect from PHP 7 by the year 2020).
In the past you had the peace of mind that you could continue using the version that supported PHP <current - 1> if you stopped paying.
That peace of mind was one of the most important features of PhpStorm, a feature not implemented in the software, but in the licensing terms.
I just bought 2 more phpstorm corporate licences last week, for a trial to see if my two top guys like it, with a view to a departmental rollout. Now im going to have to unload that project as we could never justify a model like this. Where we would lose access to our tools if decide to cut back on the tools budget for a while or stretch it out a bit.
the agreement is that you can use the software infinitely with the version that was available on the last day of the subscription term.
Is true for the old licensing model, but not the new model.
As far as I can tell (but JetBrains' attempts to spin this are making it hard to find a definitive statement) if you stop paying your monthly fee, you have to stop using the IDE.
Overall, this is a fairly hefty price hike with "reasonable" prices grandfathered in for current customers. Along with the price hike, you're actually delivering a less useful product as well - renting software is not worth as much to me as buying a perpetual license. Judging by the other responses here, I'm not alone in that. Grandfathering in existing users might seem like a good way to appease us, but we aren't stupid.
Jetbrains has always been good to me. I like your products and recommend them to other developers. If this licensing/pricing change goes through as-is, I will not recommend Jetbrains products any more. You talk a lot in the blog post about how great this new licensing model is for us - if you're serious about any of that, give us a real choice. Offer the old model alongside this one and see which one we customers find to be more useful. Anything less would be an admission that, better or not, you're forcing these changes on us without any concern for what we want.
I'm actually disappointed that JetBrains are trying to spin this as a net positive for most folk, when it seems clear that it isn't.
I love PHPStorm, but I'm not married to it. Once this rental plan goes into effect, it will be time to find something else.
It's a tough position for Jetbrains. I've got a lot of sympathy, the annual release + purchase model is very limiting - but changing to a subscription model comes with its own problems that you can't just brush under the rug by offering a promotional price and talking about flexibility.
So now I'm stuck using PyCharm 4.x forever unless I pay a monthly fee to upgrade. And if I stop paying I lose access to my IDE? Truly an awful way to treat loyal customers.
I can only hope that JetBrains abandons this new SaaS model or has some plan to allow users to purchase either a perpetual license or a subscription a-la Microsoft Office.
If not, then I hope Atom or Sublime Text get some robust debugging plugins for Python like PyCharm has.
We where about to kit out our entire department with phpstorm but now its going to be really really hard to justify this. This is nothing about being more convient for customers, its about screwing more money out of people. I am very very disapointed.
Before November 2: First year: $199 a seat Each subsequent year: $129 a seat
After November 2: First year and each subsequent year: $119-149 a seat (with/without a promotion available)
Following November 2nd, a company has no choice but to cough up the yearly fee or the software stops working and the developers can't do any work without changing the software they use.
Yup, and all it takes is for an invoice to get misplaced or delayed in your accounts payable team and development grinds to a halt.
Under the old model:
- If the company moves away from a particular technology they can just keep an unsupported, but legal, license for the IDE in case they need to fix bugs, etc.
- If the company needs to improve cashflow it can defer upgrades
- If JetBrains goes out of business, you can keep using the IDE
- If JetBrains discontinues the product, you can keep using the IDE
- If JetBrains stops delivering worthwhile upgrades, you stop paying to upgrade.
- If JetBrains decides to unreasonably increase the upgrade price you stop paying. (edit: Added)
The benefits of the new model are:
- It's easier to account for the licensing cost as OpEx rather than CapEx, which matters to some businesses.
- It's easier to adjust your license costs in-line with your headcount. Hire some contractors? Add a couple of licenses. Downsizing that team? Drop some licenses.
Some organisations will consider that to be a beneficial trade-off, but many won't.
We're used to helping users of commercial licenses who are faced with delayed payments in their companies, and I'm sure we'll be doing this with the new model as well.
I can see October being a huge month where people buy perpetual copies of tools they were thinking about buying in the past.
The situation reminds me of this part from Ubik by Philip K. Dick:
Back in the kitchen he fished in his various pockets for a dime, and, with it, started up the coffeepot. Sniffing the - to him - very unusual smell, he again consulted his watch, saw that fifteen minutes had passed; he therefore vigorously strode to the apt door, turned the knob and pulled on the release bolt.
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”
A knock sounded on the door. “Hey, Joe, baby, it’s me, G. G. Ashwood. And I’ve got her right here with me. Open up.” “Put a nickel in the slot for me,” Joe said. “The mechanism seems to be jammed on my side.”
A coin rattled down into the works of the door; it swung open and there stood G. G. Ashwood with a brilliant look on his face. It pulsed with sly intensity, an erratic, gleaming triumph as he propelled the girl forward and into the apt.
My company uses WebStorm regularly because it's a solid IDE for Linux; I've heard of Visual Studio Code running on Linux; have people found that comparable?
Your major options for a web development IDE on Linux would be Aptana/Eclipse and Netbeans.
On the flip side - IntelliJ comes out with a new version every single year, and if you don't upgrade you are kind of screwed (At least as someone who codes latest cut of Scala)
So not a big change to my wallet, but it does make me sad a little.
current model: purchase new upgraded version of resharper every year (or two). abandon old version.
new model: subscribe to resharper. upgrade when new version comes out. abandon old version.
Is anyone really using a copy of resharper 6 right now? and VS2010?
I also have phpStorm but I didn't upgrade this year as I'm not doing as much PHP development anymore. However, I still use it to make changes to old code bases.
Now you have to keep paying whether they add features or not.
The initial buy-in is cheaper for many products than it was previously, so for new developers they have to have some ability to retain people to even break even with subscription licensing.
The annual subscription seems to be more expensive than the current per-upgrade add-on price for most products, though. And, of course, there are some, like WebStorm, where the annual subscription price is more even the new-purchase price under the old model.
So, its kind of a mixed bag.
I read that whole release wondering if they actually believed that this was some sort of reaction to consumer demand or if they just think people are incredibly ignorant.
No thanks.
Surprised I didn't see a tweet that read:
"Dear JetBrains. I loved buying your product so much I want to do it EVERY month!"
If you're the kind of person who doesn't maintain their existing S&M subscription then it will end up costing you more, but typically this will break even for people that do regularly maintain them.
EDIT: Am I honestly getting downvoted because I'm not hopping aboard the wold-is-ending-because-subscriptions-are-bad circlejerk? I expect this kind of behavior on Reddit, not HN.
It's not like I'm telling anyone "you're wrong" for not liking the changes, but I certainly hope I'm allowed to state my opinion too.
This means that you have no control over pricing, and that JetBrains doesn't need to worry about whether you'll renew year-to-year if they don't produce upgrades that make your renewal worthwhile.
Long-term mutually beneficial economic relationships are rarely built on top of coercive models that give one party such an enormous advantage.
I am curious about "JetBrains now controls pricing". Haven't they always? If they raised their price outrageously for yearly upgrade model, they would lose customers, so that's true of new and old system. I have control of whether I pay their price or not, but they get to control the price, as always.
I understand to some degree that losing access to a tool is an inconvenience, but it doesn't strike me as a terrible burden. It's all just a view into the code, there's nothing irreplaceable about it. So renting compared to having guaranteed permanent access is a loss, but it doesn't seem that awful - but that's very different person to person.
Anyway, I am legitimately curious to hear more about this viewpoint. I kind of get it but don't have the strong visceral reaction to it as many others on here. Is it a use case difference, of people who skip upgrades versus those who don't and pay every year? Or is it fundamentally a philosophical stance on own versus rent?
Certainly a reasonable concern, it'd be nice if they implemented some kind of pricing guarantee. It sure wouldn't alleviate the concerns of everyone, but I think it'd go a long way towards showing goodwill.
Sure they do: the languages JetBrains IDEs support are also supported by other IDEs, free and paid. If your renewal doesn't leave you in a better position than the other alternatives on the market, you'll leave for some other tool.
I bet you think cable TV is a bargain too considering the literally thousands of channels you receive...
I'd prefer to pay for what I need... and keep it. And update when I feel I need to.
> I bet you think cable TV is a bargain too considering the literally thousands of channels you receive...
Why are you putting words in my mouth? I explicitly do not pay for cable because it is outrageously expensive and I watch a fraction of what I am forced to pay for.
I already pay more for these tools I use than I would be paying under the new plan, and I've been looking at buying CLion too. This is a net savings for me, personally.
I am sure (much like the cable company does with "introductory" rates) that JetBrains was careful to set an initial price point that makes this a competitive offer.
The problem (as better stated elsewhere) is that the relationship is changed going forward. If they decide to raise the rates you are now left with the decision to continue at a less advantageous rate or have no product at all.
In addition, you assume that a major release per year is an inevitability. There may very well be no compelling reason to update... but it won't matter in this instance because you will pay no matter what.
teacup50 did a better job describing this...
Fortunately, there's a little thing called competition that prevents raising rates at will without facing the consequences, and JetBrains is no exception: we're no monopoly.
I'm sure different product teams here at JetBrains will adapt to the new model in a different way. My hope is that the change will contribute to a focus switch from a race to provide new features to ensuring better stability, performance and UX.
Should add this to the press release. Would make me feel lucky to be a customer...
Customers are incentivized to keep ponying up for a subscription, because the alternative is a costly transition to other tools.
JetBrains, like any other business, is incentivized to maximize profits and minimize costs.
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.
This is the very definition of "rent-seeking" behavior, and it's scummy.
I'm not left with any such decision, they have explicitly stated in their FAQ that the 'existing customer' rates will continue indefinitely as long as the subscription is maintained. Sure, this means if I cancel I lose my special pricing, I'm not blind, but I don't see it happening.
> In addition, you assume that a major release per year is an inevitability.
I don't assume any such thing. I do not renew my licenses every year solely for the purpose of getting major new releases, point versions of current releases are part of the S&M as well, and getting left without bugfixes or support is not an option.
But I reject the idea that getting more of something I don't want makes this any more palatable.
> 9. Can I use my personal license on multiple machines?
> You may install the license on more than one machine but it may be used on only one machine at a time. To run multiple installations simultaneously, each instance requires a separate license.
https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb (#9 under License Types and Users)
Will I still be able to run multiple instances of ReSharper on the same machine? This is pretty essential to my workflow. For example, I have three instances of VS2015 open at the moment: One for my Unity project, another for a C# plugin, and a third for the installer. ReSharper runs fine in all of them.
I can also run these on my Windows machine while having IDEA open on my Mac. (Actually the Windows machine is a Parallels VM, but same difference.) Will this capability go away? That would be unfortunate.
JetBrains needs to reassure us multiple instances are ok on same machine and across VMs. Will running the IDE in OS X and also a guest Linux VM look like multi-machine use? If so, that's really a bad flaw in licensing.
If you encounter a case when a setup like this doesn't work, please contact JetBrains and we'll look into resolving the problem.
If this is legit and I can run IDEA on the host machine and in one or more VMs on the same machine, that would be a very good thing for multiplatform developers.
Co-using IJ and ReSharper should be fine as well, as long as it's you and only you using them.
Keep the subscription model. Set the non-discounted prices for a year's subscription at the same price level that perpetual license upgrades were. The monthly prices can be higher, maybe 20% more for a year billed monthly than annually. Offer a 10% grandfathered discount to apologize to your current customers for forcing them onto a subscription model. Don't offer any kind of promotional discount on the "all the Jetbrains" package deal - it's already underpriced. I think that this is a reasonable compromise that allows switching to a subscription model without screwing over either old or new customers.
Additionally, be honest. Many of your customers and most of your users are developers. We understand the upsides and downsides of a subscription model from both perspectives. Trying to spin away those downsides will backfire and leave us feeling taken advantage of. You've spent many years building up all this developer goodwill, it would be a shame to lose it over something like this.
Edit: If you charged me 10 bucks a month for 0xDBE I wouldnt be able to get it approved even on a good day. Charge us 500 a year then the check would be cut that afternoon.
If you are upset by this change, please let Jetbrains know! Customer input has helped companies reverse similar policies in the past.
You can quickly customize and send it out here (this site has been a side project for me): https://www.sincerelyme.org/everything-else/jetbrains-subscr...
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It's also copied into the post below:
Email at: busdev@jetbrains.com
Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/JetBrains
More at: https://www.jetbrains.com/company/contacts/
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Dear Jetbrains,
I am writing to express my thorough disappointment with the decision for Jetbrains to switch to a subscription based model. While I understand the need for businesses to monetize, I feel that this monetization strategy is completely over looking the needs and desires of your historically loyal user base. I could understand this decision if your products were serviced-based or hosted (i.e. cloud) solutions, but as a stand-alone, desktop software this decision only serves to benefit one party.
Not only are you questioning historically loyal users by continuously asking them to show their support for your product, you are literally devaluing your product by requiring me to repurchase it on a recurring basis. No longer do I have the option to purchase a high-value, life long, perpetual license for your product. I do not understand how Jetbrains can drag themselves to the ranks of often, lackluster subscription based software.
I have long been a loyal and vocal advocate for Jetbrains software and customer service. Your software does make my job easier and I do enjoy using it. Your customer support and involvement with your loyal community has long been top notch. I often go out of my way to explain why I love using your products, like Webstorm and PHPStorm, and have convinced many people to switch to Jetbrains. After this decision, I have no desire to continue advocating your historically incredible software and intend to make it very clear to potential users of how you’ve decided to treat loyal users.
This decision shows a lack of empathy for the community you have worked so hard to build and I am extremely concerned about your future considerations of myself and the rest of the community. Unless Jetbrains decides to amend this new policy with consideration for traditional, perpetual based licenses, I will no longer be purchasing new offerings. I will use the current version of software. When I feel they are no longer suitable for use, I will look for alternatives offering perpetual licenses or simply use a text editor.
Again, your software does make my job easier and I do enjoy using it, but I want to make it clear that I do not need to you your software. There are plenty of acceptable alternative IDE's and, of course, I can always use a standard text editor.
I hope Jetbrains can recognize the error of their ways and address this issue in response to the community. I want to continue enjoying your products and advocating for a historically incredible brand.
Sincerely,
{Your Name}
So new users are getting shafted an extra 30 bones on top of what I pay. So in solidarity with new users, thanks but no thanks. Pretty bogus if you ask me.