I’m all for getting good deals and good pricing for stuff, whether that’s software, cars, or microwave ovens…
However, compared to many other commercial text editors out there, $70 is a very good deal. For example, SlickEdit will cost you $299 for a copy.
I’m also finding it hard to believe that a computer science student can’t afford $70 for something that, presumably, would be used for all 4 years of their university (and I’m ignoring whether or not they’re going to graduate school!). When I was a university student around 15 years ago, I had individual text books for a single half-year class that cost more than $100. Of course, this was in the United States, and it’s possible that text books are significantly cheaper in other parts of the world (I know for a fact they are in India, for example). If you’re in one of these parts of the world where text books are a lot cheaper than where I live, my apologies. If that was the case, then yes, I can see how $70 might be a bit pricey.
In that case, I don’t know what to say. Given how a lot of companies do have student pricing discounts for their products, perhaps the folks behind Sublime would consider doing that – perhaps something along the lines of “send the company proof of being a student and you’ll get a coupon code for a discount.” A blanket lowering of Sublime’s price for all customers probably wouldn’t make too much business sense, given how it’s already really cheap compared to other commercial options. However, a student discount has often worked for other companies under the notion that selling it cheap to them when they’re students will build loyalty such that they’ll later pay full price for future copies of the product after graduation.
Other than that, either keep using the trial version of use one of the many high quality open source editors out there. They may not be as good as Sublime (though, like everything, everyone has different opinions on the subject), but they’ll certainly get the job done.
