Following the announcement of Visual Studio for Mac’s retirement, for the next 65 hours we are offering a 65% discount on new subscriptions for Rider, the only cross-platform .NET IDE.
The offer is valid for a new one-year personal subscription purchased before 6:00 am UTC, September 4, 2023.
Do they not offer a simple purchase option, only subscriptions?
Yes, included in the 12 month license is the entitlement to that version forever.
https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What-is-perpetual-fallback-license-
Also worth noting that unlike every other subscription service they reward loyalty with large discounts on renewing annually.
IDEs need to be constantly updated to keep up with language / framework changes. Your subscription pays for that continued work.
If you really want, you can buy the 1 year and cancel after it’s up - you get a perpetual license for the version you’re on at the time it expires, but I really don’t get why that would be a good thing.
No, for the version at the time you bought it. Which makes sense, it’s kinda like buying that version back then.
Sure, but visual studio offers a standalone purchase option and Jetbrains should too.