They also are the rare example of a company that actually left russia (even more impressive because the company was largely russian) unlike western and eastern companies that published some press releases, but still continue to work and collaborate with russia. Even the "privacy first" Apple continues to remove any app the russian government asks and pays millions in fines.

Totally agree. And so far they haven’t enshittified their products. Prices are ok and licensing terms are ok.

>selling to one of the hardest segments (developers who are notoriously frugal).

But they don't sell to developers, they sell to suits high in the food chain of a corporation.

I know many developers who buy Jetbrains licenses from their own pockets.

I'm one... I was introduced to JB by someone else who paid out of their own pocket 18 years ago. I thought he was crazy... then a couple years later I tried it in earnest and it was ... life (well career) changing.

Out of curiosity: do you know why they pay for it themselves instead of asking their company to do so?

Because not all "developers" are developers in their day jobs. I'm personally a sysadmin most of the time, and I do my own R&D (mostly academic, but novel).

Some tools I like are not free, and I buy licenses by myself.

Cause many developers have personal projects they cant use company resources on

I'm paying for their IDEs out of my pocket since 2012

TBH even that can be a hard sell at times

I bought my first Jetbrains license when they had an end of the world clearance sale. https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2012/12/20/jetbrains-end-of-...

... and haven't let it expire since.