Many junior developers in my city make around $300 a month. After spending $200 on rent and most of the rest on food, you're not left with much. I understand nobody really cares about crap-holes like mine when they're making most of their money in Western Europe and North America, so just throwing it out there.

I'm not paying that much for an editor that runs counter to my muscle memory, just so I can use a different programming language.

If a language requires some IDE to make it usable, then I put it in the same camp as Java: Hope the competition are using it.

How much would a carpenter pay for a fancy bench top for their workshop? I'm guessing not a lot, since they can make one themselves.

Programmers are toolmakers, and are therefore harsh critics of tools they use; just like a carpenter will tell you everything that's wrong with the design, and choice of wood that went into a pricey, but ultimately-affordable-to-a-carpenter bench top. Having access to cheaper, good-enough alternatives is part of it.

This is an undue attack. We buy our computers and screens and keyboards, most of us are on commercial OS, we pay for SaaS at a non trivial price, and most of us also use additional personal apps that aren't free (including password managers, mail clients etc.). Those are actual tools for the trade.

Arguing we should also buy every Jetbrains product is like arguing carpenters should buy line drawing AR goggles. Perhaps some will see the value in it, but it's far from an noncontroversial POV. If you feel a tool as as much downsides than upsides in your workflow, you don't use it, whatever its price is.

If you work for a company, in any field, and they don't supply the tools for you to do your job, they are doing them selves a disservice.

If you want your employees to be productive, you provide them tools to achieve that, otherwise you get what you pay for.

It's the Companies that are acting entitled in this situation, not the workers.

1. A Musician has one tool. Ok, maybe a note-stand etc. But in software, there are thousands of "tools" you can buy.

2. Physical tools vs making copies of some bytes. No need to retread this here, but bottom line: Not comparable.

We pay $3500 every 2 years to have up-to-date hardware