I'd be more willing to pay for the quality if a nice, unified experience was the result, but it annoyingly isn't. To say nothing of the lack of support for things like Rust.
That's what this new generation of IDEs is exciting to me - the unified language server standards. Let the compilers handle understanding the code which is what they are best at. Especially if it helps make IDEs less tied to the build system in general (no, CLion, I don't want to use CMake)
That said I still spend a chunk of time (maybe 30%) in vscode because for somethings I prefer it (it's git support with git lens is incredible) and for TypeScript it's comparable to Intellij with the advantage you can start it, do an edit and close before Intellij has finished re-indexing.
But, for JetBrains, at $200/seat/year ... as an Indie making anything more than $150/hour, why would you even worry about it?
EDIT: I'm mostly a vi guy, so I don't really know my ass from a hole in the ground w.r.t. IDEs. It's just ridiculous to me that a professional might complain about a $200 tool being expensive. But, your constraints are not my constraints, so I'm probably being overly judgemental. And, for that, if I am, I am sorry.
It is a bargain compared with what I used to pay for programming tools during the 90's.
In other professions people care to buy their tools.
JetBrains' tools have to be rented.
If not, anyone can create e.g. a free and open Python or Ruby IDE inside the familiar IntelliJ IDE experience, e.g. by adopting IDE-like software used in Emacs, Vim, or Sublime.
See also: language servers. I think that the future is "the editor of your choice" + "the language servers you can afford". JetBrains's IDE is already modular, but these modules just happen to run in the same Java process. This limitation of IDE architecture can be overcome, and companies like Microsoft keep pouring efforts into it.
I find it's IntelliSense and TypeScript support superior. Especially when I'm on a project using webpack/sass/etc. IDEA just seems to get lost. It either can't find a method definition or is constantly complaining about various things.
WebStorm is somewhat better, but I'm not going to pop for another license when I technically already have that functionality covered.
I haven't tried WebStorm since 2016, so my last experience is dated but I've just gotten to like VS Code for front end work.
I can't speak for most languages, but for Python it seems to be very far from the "de facto"; I've only seen a few people, and most people strongly dislike it.
It's difficult to beat vim (or Emacs) for quick edits. But for deep-dive coding I'm gladly sold in on jetbrains.
Isn't it basically an Atom alternative? What makes it, and not Atom, an IDE rather than 'augmented text editor', to borrow GP's phrasing?
