Good news.

Looks like JetBrains changed their tune. Received this by email today:

Hello,

We are delighted to introduce our new Free plan at JetBrains Academy! It is completely free of charge for individual learners and doesn’t require starting a trial or a subscription. No payment information is required either! The Free plan provides full access to all the free tracks at JetBrains Academy, such as Kotlin Basics and Frontend Developer.

If you are already learning at JetBrains Academy and don’t have an active subscription, you’ll need to enroll in either the Free or Personal plan after your trial period ends. To do that, go to the Subscription page and click Change plan. Note that if the plan is changed while the trial is still active, what remains of the trial period will be discarded.
Change plan
Thank you for studying with JetBrains Academy!

Happy learning,
JetBrains Academy Team

It’s a trial subscription after which the cost will be $249/y.