His friends started responding to his emails for a span covering years? That's a bit strange, I don't understand why or how they'd do that unless asked to and given the credentials.
If those friends are included in the people who haven't heard from him in years, I'd consider that behaviour a little suspicious.
If you can't find any evidence of activity, or anybody to vouch for him - I'd consider filing a report.
Subscription-based models are a plague, but at least Jetbrains products eventually offer a perpetual fallback license for if you stop paying.
It's absurd that Adobe can just take tools you might depend on away after years of paying the subscription.