alt Hacker NewsI think the subscription pricing model kind of incentivizes developers (at least hobby developers) to pick one and go all in on it. For someone who has probably never paid $20/mo for a piece of software in their life, $20/mo is kind of a big commitment, and the pay-per-token schemes are reportedly much more expensive for the equivalent blob of coding they enable. So you "pick one," plonk down the $20, and use it as much as you can in the month so it's worth it. If you want to try the other one, you don't renew next month, and plonk down another $20 for the other one.
You can go back and forth and compare since you pay for both subscriptions, but is that a usual case? I'd guess most developers picked one in 2025 and haven't gone back. Just like most people just pick a bank for their checking account and never change it.
> For someone who has probably never paid $20/mo for a piece of software in their life, $20/mo is kind of a big commitment
I could see this being true for a high school student or college freshman eating rice and beans in their dorm room. Many of us have been there.
For someone in a software development career, $20/month for tools is a trivial expense.
I think some people have a strong aversion to paying for any tooling, but I don't think the people carrying around their $3000 MacBook Pros are going to avoid paying $20 for a month to try something new if they're using it daily.