Why nobody pays for Sublime? - josebaezmedina
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putzdown
I paid for it because it's valuable and deserves payment. I get paid for doing
work in which I use it. I want its maker to continue to thrive and sustain it
(a wish, I admit, that has not panned out as expected; development on Sublime
Text is incredibly slow). All ethical logic says I should pay and so I did.

What makes you think that "nobody" pays for Sublime? Perhaps you mean, "I'm
using this essential tool without paying for and I'd like to believe that lots
of other people are also cheating its maker and would they please give me some
rationalizations I can use to make myself feel better?" What's the question
exactly?

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jmdevivo
Sublime text is purposefully "winrar free" (free to use but asks accepts
payment for a license). I do agree that the developer has made a product of
worth and I myself will be purchasing a license shortly to support him/her.
However, it is not "morally" better to pay for the software or not as the
developer has chosen to make it freely available to all with an internet
connection.

Oh and to answer the original question (why do so many use sublime text
without purchasing it), its because they don't want to spend the money and
don't have to in order to use the editor

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pkroll
I paid for Sublime Text 2. Still use it all the time. Worth the money.

The "why nobody pays for" line reminds me that at one point, a comedy site
announced "first person pays for mIrc IRC client!" because really, who would
pay for that program? And yet, if you looked at the occasional charity
sessions the author held, it appears mIrc was pulling in $40K-$50K per month.
Not going to attract VCs, but good coin.

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hxmc
Because apart from the popup you eventually unconsciously dismiss every x
number of saves, there's no reason to pay up.

I've been using it for 4 years unpaid, sublime has helped me get my first
home. If I was forced to tomorrow because I could no longer use it I'd pay for
it immediately, but right now there's nothing pushing me to part with my cash.

~~~
hanxue
I would like to hire you for your honesty

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dave_ops
Because I already got burned once paying for TextMate and having the
development basically die. The same pattern seems to be happening with Sublime
Text.

So I finally just started using Emacs instead. Setup my keybindings so they're
Mac/Sublime Text like and wrote a little custom frame/window manager in elisp
to make the application behave the way I want, and I'm free from having to
worry about one of my core tools turning into abandonware.

~~~
FireBeyond
I felt the same way. Bought a license for 2, then for 3. Then immediately
watched a lack of updates for nearly a year (or any of substance). But the 3
"dev" channel is pretty active currently:
[http://www.sublimetext.com/3dev](http://www.sublimetext.com/3dev)

None of that changes your point, that you're still at the mercy / whim of a
developer.

~~~
copperx
> you're still at the mercy / whim of a developer

Well, aren't we all?

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davelnewton
I paid; while I'm not a power user, and it's a bit finicky to code for, I
don't see why I _shouldn 't_ pay.

If I released a "pay if you want" product I'd want people to feel like it's
worth it and give me money. It'd be hypocritical for me _not_ to pay.

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icc97
I paid for it because I've found it superior than all the other text editors
I've used (those that are comparable e.g. Atom / MS Code just seemed to steal
all it's ideas). Plus it's a business expense so you save on the taxes.

It's:

* Cross-platform

* A small scale team

* One license and I can install it on all my machines

* Excellent plugins [1]

* Fast

* Low memory usage / leaks

* Lovely UI - tabs, distraction free, removal of dividers, scroll bars, text rendering

* Great syntax highlighting (I'm a solarized fan and it's implemented very faithfully)

* Originator of some very good and well implemented ideas (AFAIK) - Crtl+Shift+P, Distraction Free, Document Map

* F12 to go to the definition of the function / method

[1]: [http://txfx.net/2014/11/08/my-sublime-
text-3-packages/](http://txfx.net/2014/11/08/my-sublime-text-3-packages/)

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vfclists
Software developers are such a bunch of minging cheapskates. Giving the
potential for high earnings it is a wonder why so many developers are so
stingy. Paying $5000 - $10000 for a set of tools which their living depends on
seems to be so much why?

How much do builders, cab drivers for instance, pay for their tools? Why does
a group of people who consider themselves to be a profession have so much
problem paying for tools? How much does a doctor, a lawyer, or dentist need to
shell out in order to start practising?

This attitude among software developers needs to change. It is no wonder so
many software tools are of such poor quality.

I am sure a lot of Sublime and Textmate users easily pay $100 for a night out
on the town, so why should paying such an amount for a tool their living
depends on be such a big issue.?

~~~
macjohnmcc
It might be the same for other professions if the tools were able to be
obtained without payment. You'd think that people who make their living
producing software that must be paid for to pay them that they wouldn't
begrudge someone who makes their professional life all that much easier. (I
paid for Sublime Text)

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whostolemyhat
I paid for it. It's incredibly useful and I use it every day, and since I
expect to get paid for apps I release, why would someone else's work be
different?

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gbraad
I paid, since I use it professionally. Just like I would donate to useful open
source software if they have an option for this. They do the same to my
apps...

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mattkrea
I did pay. It's a great product and nag screens annoy the hell out of me too.

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jayturley
I paid for it. Because I want to support the developer. Same as I do with
music.

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AndersAtEndian
I paid since it's a tool I'm using on more or less on a daily basis.

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runjake
Honestly, I perceive the price as too high, even though I use it day in and
day out.

The price is also above my imaginary software impulse buy level. If it were
$19, I would have already impulse bought a copy.

If it turned into trialware that disabled features after a certain amount of
time, I'd ditch it and use another editor. Lame, but I'm being honest.

~~~
Corrado
I bought it because I use it. Every. Single. Day. So, almost any price is
worth a tool that is used constantly and delivers untold benefit. It might not
be the same for you; you might not get as much value out of it as I do. But if
its something you truly use "day in and day out" how can you not purchase it?
It just makes good sense.

Listen, good tools are hard to come by and supporting those tools helps to
ensure that they are there when you need them. Not supporting something that
helps you make money endangers your ability to continue to make money. That's
my $.02

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likeclockwork
I was always intending to pay for Sublime but I no longer use it, now using
vim for all of my editing needs.

Opinions on nagware aside, Sublime is a good tool and I did feel bad about
using it to make a living and not contributing.. but I was also afraid to get
too attached to a closed source editor. I think maybe sublime is kind of in a
deadzone of being a nagware text editor that is free to use, but not an IDE
with a huge feature set for an ecosystem that requires it, or an IDE that
accesses some kind of propeitary vender-locked tech stack. For everything
that's good about it, ultimately it's just a text editor and there are a lot
of text editors of similar power out there if you're not looking for a sexy
GUI.

So, I have no idea.

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antaviana
My guess is that Jon Skinner was more interested in capturing users to help
him make a great editor than in maximizing the capture of money from fewer
customers.

If he wanted to maximize the capture of money, instead of nagware it should be
a exploding trial, perhaps for days of use instead of calendar days.

Probably the right price for Sublime Text is $49/year with upgrades included
or, if not tecnically feasible, $99 permanent with no upgrade discounts. It
might seem counterintuititive not to offer upgrade discounts, but Someone who
has paid you once the full price is a lot more likely to pay you again the
full price for a new version, especially at sub-$100 price point.

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jdc0589
most developers hate paying for development tools. thats just how it is.

I payed for Sublime a long time ago for 2 reasons: 1) if I'm publishing
plugins for it, I should probably have a legit license for it. 2) It's the
best text editor out there for me, period. I use it enough I owe it to Jon to
buy a license.

That said, I doubt I'll pay for any future versions licenses. I don't want to
rely on closed source tools, and the editor/IDE arena has always been one of
the areas I can't seem to go totally FOSS. Hopefully atom continues to
improve; I might switch over when 1.0 comes out.

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wodenokoto
When I started using Sublime it seemed that the new version was just around
the corner, and I thought there would probably be some sort of release (or
near release) discount just around the corner as well.

Then the project went silent, came back, but had this weird we're back but we
are mostly telling it to paying customers, so it was a bit confusing what was
going on. I'm kinda still waiting to see if I should switch editor or if the
release of sublime3 will reawaken the plugin ecosystem.

tl;dr: bad excuses.

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brador
If they collect stats on this (and I'm sure they do!) the data will be skewed.
I've purchased it twice over the last few years and feel entitled to download
the free version everytime because I'll be on a new/formatted computer. It's
just faster, but I've still technically paid.

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nikiiv
I have it but I don't use it much.. if at all.. I use Atom.. If the license
was around half of what is it or if I can find an license on a discount I
probably would and start using it regularly. It is not part of my daily
routine.. For example I have IntelliJ license because this is what I use

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bmvakili
Because it's free and not that different? To clarify, I use and I don't pay;
but am seriously considering; probably will pay once beta's over (I'm using
the beta for version 3); definitely appreciate the tool; I really enjoying
using Sublime tool.

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cdoelling
Im a casual coder and love the built in features, but never paid because I
never identified as a full time developer. I always thought I would pay for it
once I needed all the time, but that never happened.

Now I use Atom, not the same hot keys but good enough for a few docs a month.

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replete
I haven't paid for it yet, but have used for a couple of years. The reasoning
was simply that v3 was about to drop, so I figured I'd wait for that before
buying.

At this point though, I'm ready to move onto a more serious IDE.

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saluki
Great product I use everyday. If you like and use a tool support it. I paid.

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MalcolmDiggs
Is the premise of this question valid? I've noticed about a 50/50 split
anecdotally. Does anybody know the real #s? (What % of users pay?)

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VOYD
Because it's OSS, and there are at least 10 variation products also on the
market, namely Brackets, Visual Studio Code, ATOM, etc.

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Blaine0002
no its not?

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rrrx3
I paid, and I use it daily, but I have noticed the drop-off in support lately.

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icc97
Please could someone correct the grammar in the question?

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jti107
why would i pay $70 when i can get 75% of the features for free (textmate,
textwrangler)

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ido
Depends how much you value the other features - if my professional time is
worth $100k/year and sublime makes me more than 0.07% more efficient compared
to using another editor than spending $70 yearly or less might make sense.

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yahme
Why use Sublime at all if you have vim and emacs?

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mister_m
Why use emacs or vim if you have ed?

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heldtogether
Why use ed if you have cat?

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Jeremy1026
Why use cat if you have a magnetized needle and a steady hand?

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o4tuna
Why use a magnetized needle and a steady hand when you have an IBM 029
keypunch station?

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vram22
Abacus. Fingers of two hands. Sand or clay to write on. ...

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mariusschulz
Don't write at all.

