It's not that, it's like others have said up the thread – the mental overhead of subscriptions is super annoying. (Sure, not if it was the only subscription you have, but it isn't.)
I let Jetbrains lapse a lot. But certainly not when I am actively using it. If I start using it regularly again (which I do, intermittently over the years) then I subscribe again.
But the thing is, that also solves the elephant in the room that devs don't want to talk about: a huge portion of subscription revenues comes from providing absolutely no value at all to customers. It's people paying for a subscription, being too busy to notice the charges -- or worse, too busy to figure out how to cancel them even thought they do notice, and mean to.
And devs can claim this is ethical, because they disclosed the subscription recurrence, and the responsibility lies with the customer to track all their subscriptions diligently, across all their platforms and billing methods, and cancel them whenever they stop using them.
And some people do that. But most do not.
So the other way to look at it is that subscription software models are just a scam. A way to exploit people who lack the organization, or have two jobs and kids, or whatever — and get money out of them without providing any value at all. For months, or even years in many cases. Of course it is great for your bottom line. But is it ethical? Even if you think it is, is it a cool thing to do?
I think both arguments make sense. It is debatable.
But personally, I would only want to do subscription billing if I had some means (perhaps via opt-in telemetry) to automatically detect when the product hasn't been used at all during the billing period, and not charge anything in those cases.
I let Jetbrains lapse a lot. But certainly not when I am actively using it. If I start using it regularly again (which I do, intermittently over the years) then I subscribe again.
But the thing is, that also solves the elephant in the room that devs don't want to talk about: a huge portion of subscription revenues comes from providing absolutely no value at all to customers. It's people paying for a subscription, being too busy to notice the charges -- or worse, too busy to figure out how to cancel them even thought they do notice, and mean to.
And devs can claim this is ethical, because they disclosed the subscription recurrence, and the responsibility lies with the customer to track all their subscriptions diligently, across all their platforms and billing methods, and cancel them whenever they stop using them.
And some people do that. But most do not.
So the other way to look at it is that subscription software models are just a scam. A way to exploit people who lack the organization, or have two jobs and kids, or whatever — and get money out of them without providing any value at all. For months, or even years in many cases. Of course it is great for your bottom line. But is it ethical? Even if you think it is, is it a cool thing to do?
I think both arguments make sense. It is debatable.
But personally, I would only want to do subscription billing if I had some means (perhaps via opt-in telemetry) to automatically detect when the product hasn't been used at all during the billing period, and not charge anything in those cases.