prohibitively expensive? I think you haven't thought this through.
Already Chairs, Desk and Rent for every engineer is more expensive than 200 USD every year. Their salary is many hundred times 200 USD. I pay more for coffee and water that they can get for free every year.
Independent devs without income can get PHPStorm at much lower rates.
can you tell me how independent devs can access PHPStorm at lower rates? I would love to stop using VSCode. 200USD might be ok for you, but over 800 reais for an IDE is not something I can pay.
Notebooks in Brazil are almost three times as expensive as abroad, internet costs are through the roof here as well as living costs...
I thought this through, I just have a harder reality than you I guess
I can also suggest you to approach JetBrains people if you see them in at a conference. They sponsor many PHP conferences, and open source maintainers (don't have to Linus) can request or open-source license.
They also have an Early Access Program that you try out beta releases, and they are free of cost.
you also get a perpetual license if you pay for a year upfront or 12 consecutive months of your subscription, so you can stop paying and keep using the version you paid for forever
Already Chairs, Desk and Rent for every engineer is more expensive than 200 USD every year. Their salary is many hundred times 200 USD. I pay more for coffee and water that they can get for free every year.
Independent devs without income can get PHPStorm at much lower rates.