Josh On Design

JetBrains, the makers of IntelliJ, WebStorm, and many other IDEs, recently announced they are moving to a subscription model. This has proven to be somewhat controversial.

As someone who uses multiple JetBrains tools, I think the new model is pretty good.  I think of it as a monthly cost of being a developer, this simply lets me consolidate those costs. I'm happy to invest in tools that let me write better software. If I was a painter I would invest in my canvas and paints and brushes. If I was a carpenter I’d invest in strong power tools and a nice workspace. The craft of building software is no different.

As someone who uses multiple JetBrains tools, I think the new model is pretty good.  I think of it as a monthly cost of being a developer, this simply lets me consolidate those costs. I’m happy to invest in tools that let me write better software. If I was a painter I would invest in my canvas and paints and brushes. If I was a carpenter I’d invest in strong power tools and a nice workspace. The craft of building software is no different.

I realize that some people don’t like it because they think of software as a product. However, software developers, of all people, should know that while software sometimes feels like a product it has always been a service.  Good software is never done. It always needs ongoing development. New security exploits are discovered. Platforms change. APIs change. New techniques are discovered. Bit-rot is real. 

There was a time we could pretend that software was a product by burning it to disks and sticking it in boxes on shelves, but it’s always been an ongoing service. We just charged for it like a product for a certain period of time even though the costs to develop were ongoing.  I think that time is probably over.

In the past there would be paid upgrades to cover these costs. It was always a service, just hidden by the model of “optional” paid-upgrades. Now we can sell software as has always really been: an ongoing service.