I'd say the tradeoffs are different rather than it never being a 'good option'. For me, paying for & using IntelliJ idea for most of my serious work has in practice been an excellent option for many years. It suits me & my working style in a way no open-source editors do. For that I'm trading the possibility that Jetbrains might die, or change its platform in a way I can't live with. In truth this has already paid off for me, regardless of what happens in the future. If I had to stop using it tomorrow it would have been well worth it.