Am a huge fan of 1Password, and use it daily with a work and family account (even helped my mom migrate her passwords out of her Mac Stickies app ). I haven’t really tried other services. I just started reading a bit about Bitwarden and it seems like a promising alternative. Might have to play with it.
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1Password Restores Free-to-Use Local Vault Option in Latest Version of iOS App
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Even though the initial change did not and would not have affected me, I understand and agree with many who are upset.
Jeff Shiner, Dave Teare, and Roustem Karimov at 1Password are to blame for what happened in this scenario.
It was poorly planned, poorly executed, and poorly communicated and handled from a customer response standpoint (after the fact), in my opinion.
I don't have a problem with subscription models. I don't have a problem with a developer seeking to make software and financial changes to his or her business. What I have a problem with, is how there was no upfront communication within the 1Password staff about this desired change, as well as the lack of upfront communication with the customer before any new release.
In my opinion...
1) 1Password should have made an announcement ahead of time through their apps, social media and the company website.
2) A FAQ page should have been created ahead of time and linked to in all the aforementioned avenues.
3) A specific thread should have been created on the 1Password Forums to address the announcement and any customer concerns and problems.
4) A temporary discount should have been offered to those with a non-subscription plan, which could have made any new business model transition easier for many customers. The option should not have been taken away, (even if temporarily) in regards to the ability to recreate a local vault after a new install of the app (with a valid license).
5) in lieu of any temporary discount offering, the heads of 1Password could have, and should have set a public time frame for the loss of any non-subscription options (e.g. 6 months - 1 year from date ), in regards to the ability to create a local value after a restore etc. will not be available without a 1password subscription. That would give the customer plenty of time to decide if he or she wishes to research further about a subscription and possibly test drive the service, or look elsewhere, without feeling like they have had their valuables taken from them without warning.
1Password lost a lot of potential customers ( possibly a million dollars +) from this grade school business action. They also lost some current customers who may have subscribed, if this had been handled properly.
The CS reps like Henry, Ben, Kyle (and others) had to take the blunt of outrage. And from what I could ascertain from reading many of the posts, it appears they were either given narrow parameters in what they could say, or they were caught off-guard with the totality of what took place. Either way, I think they did the best they could. I don't blame them. I blame the 3 men listed.
As a current subscriber, I will keep a closer eye on 1password and their product. If action like the aforementioned happens again, or anything equally bad, I will take my business elsewhere.
Jeff Shiner, Dave Teare, and Roustem Karimov at 1Password are to blame for what happened in this scenario.
It was poorly planned, poorly executed, and poorly communicated and handled from a customer response standpoint (after the fact), in my opinion.
I don't have a problem with subscription models. I don't have a problem with a developer seeking to make software and financial changes to his or her business. What I have a problem with, is how there was no upfront communication within the 1Password staff about this desired change, as well as the lack of upfront communication with the customer before any new release.
In my opinion...
1) 1Password should have made an announcement ahead of time through their apps, social media and the company website.
2) A FAQ page should have been created ahead of time and linked to in all the aforementioned avenues.
3) A specific thread should have been created on the 1Password Forums to address the announcement and any customer concerns and problems.
4) A temporary discount should have been offered to those with a non-subscription plan, which could have made any new business model transition easier for many customers. The option should not have been taken away, (even if temporarily) in regards to the ability to recreate a local vault after a new install of the app (with a valid license).
5) in lieu of any temporary discount offering, the heads of 1Password could have, and should have set a public time frame for the loss of any non-subscription options (e.g. 6 months - 1 year from date ), in regards to the ability to create a local value after a restore etc. will not be available without a 1password subscription. That would give the customer plenty of time to decide if he or she wishes to research further about a subscription and possibly test drive the service, or look elsewhere, without feeling like they have had their valuables taken from them without warning.
1Password lost a lot of potential customers ( possibly a million dollars +) from this grade school business action. They also lost some current customers who may have subscribed, if this had been handled properly.
The CS reps like Henry, Ben, Kyle (and others) had to take the blunt of outrage. And from what I could ascertain from reading many of the posts, it appears they were either given narrow parameters in what they could say, or they were caught off-guard with the totality of what took place. Either way, I think they did the best they could. I don't blame them. I blame the 3 men listed.
As a current subscriber, I will keep a closer eye on 1password and their product. If action like the aforementioned happens again, or anything equally bad, I will take my business elsewhere.
And everything else now. RIP ownership.
You quoted (1Password): “We don't have any plans to get rid of traditional licenses.”
So here is my rule of thumb: plans change. Never trust any person or company who appeals to current plans (as a roadmap) for the future. It is almost always a ruse.
It can be safely assumed that Apple decided to not support paid upgrades in order to create a continuous revenue stream—SaaS (Software as a Service)—through the subscription model. So whom should we really fault for this—the developers or Apple?
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pp Store and the IOS App Store do not allow paid upgrades, correct. However, that is why you end up with "1Password 6" as one product in the app store and "1Password 7" as another product.
Is that "upgrade pricing?" Of course not. Everyone pays the same price to buy the next version, if they had never bought a previous version, bought the very first version and every version thereafter, of just bough the previous version 2 days ago. Subscription pricing doesn't fix the lack of "loyalty bonus" upgrade problems. It only addresses the "guy who bought the previous version 2 days ago" upgrade problem (which, honestly, is solved by said individual asking Apple for a refund, or by the dev issuing a warning on the app description prior to the next version coming out or drastically lowering the price of said previous-version with the warning about an impending upgrade coming soon).
Subscriptions keep people from deciding that they don't need this update because there aren't enough features. Instead, they pay no matter what features are produced, until they don't want the product at all any more or decide to move to a less costly alternative.
If you care about customers and want to put your own skin in the game, you would go the Agenda model: $20 buys you all current features plus new features for the next year; after that you keep those features but don't get any more new features (but do get new versions, just with the newer features disabled, so you also aren't running 2-year-old insecure software) unless/until you re-up for another $20/year of upgrades. Works great, and puts skin in the game on the side of the company, which can't hold my data hostage for their subscription but instead needs to earn it with compelling new features.
Well, for me, the issue is not subscriptions per se, as I have several (although I do dislike them in general and try to avoid accumulating too many). The issue is how they have handled the change-over to a subscription model. AgileBits has made a lot of mistakes, and BasicGreatGuy outlines them quite well in post #77.
As I noted in my earlier post, I am a long time user and very satisfied with the actual software, but I paid a decent fee ($50 I think?) up front as a one-time license fee. I don't intend to just eat that cost and then sign on to their subscription fee on top of it.
Thanks for the reminder not to trust updates from companies with subscription business model. Have resisted all update attempts and once they kill off the option of standalone and local storage they are out of my system.
Recently, my 1Password 6 started to flash large take-over ads on top of finder that my version "would not work in the future". Support claiimed it was a feature designed to warn for incompatibility with mac os. Yeah sure.
Recently, my 1Password 6 started to flash large take-over ads on top of finder that my version "would not work in the future". Support claiimed it was a feature designed to warn for incompatibility with mac os. Yeah sure.
I would've not minded subscriptions if the price makes sense for what I get (eg. Office 365). The problem is many of these app developers are charging stupid prices for their usually single function apps. Example, this 1password. I'm lucky I was an old customer that already paid full for the pro upgrade. Having to pay $3 per month (which means $36 per year, and $180 in 5 years) just to store passwords is a bit too much imo. And it's not like I use their servers or anything since I use dropbox for my vault.
This move is a welcomed one since I really think the 1password devs are good.
This move is a welcomed one since I really think the 1password devs are good.
Well put. Agenda is doing subscriptions the right way. Others are doing rentals: when you stop paying, you’re left with nothing.
Interesting! Never heard of Bitwarden before, but will be diving into the details of this product and its security aspects, because it looks very promising.
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I would like to clarify something. I have always fond 1Password's pricing, and versions a bit difficult to ubnderstand. Maybe I'm just a bit slow on the uptake...
If I were to pay to for the subscription model of 1Password...
1) Would I be committing to using the 1Password servers to store my data?
OR
2) Would I still be able to keep my data local (on my computer) and sync using my local wireless LAN, iCloud, Dropbox etc., or am I locked into syncing via the 1Password servers?
If I were to pay to for the subscription model of 1Password...
1) Would I be committing to using the 1Password servers to store my data?
OR
2) Would I still be able to keep my data local (on my computer) and sync using my local wireless LAN, iCloud, Dropbox etc., or am I locked into syncing via the 1Password servers?
The primary benefit of these apps isn’t the generation of a complex password, it’s the management and auto fill of credentials into applications. This then allows people to have a different password on each and every service they use so that if/when a service is compromised, only one password is compromised, not all of them. It drastically reduces the users risk because when my Facebook password is compromised, my other accounts are still safe and instead of it taking weeks to change my account on about 400 sites I have credentials for, it takes 2 or 3 minutes to update a single site.
These services go so far as alerting users when credentials have been breached by monitoring for announcements of such events.
The use of a super complex password helps to reduce the risk of some attacks, especially brute force, and ultimately for users of these apps it’s a nice bonus because the app both creates that password but also fills it in automatically, so there’s no difference to the user as to whether the password was 6 characters long or 18, it’s all automated anyway. It’s a nice feature but it’s made possible for the other before mentioned reasons.
To put it in context though, I’d argue it’s better to have 400 unique simple passwords than one complex password that is used 400 times, because as soon as that one password is compromised so is everything you use. Most people can’t remember 400 unique passwords though on their own.
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Not cross platform, which is important to me
Take a look at Enpass, it supports MacOS, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux. And you can sync your data through your own server if you don't want to use a third party cloud service. And the best part: a one time reasonable payment, no subscription.
I also had never heard of Bitwarden before reading this thread. I’m totally stunned by their iOS app. Totally stunned! Its UI is so clean and beautiful, especially the Dark theme. Really glad I found that one—thanks to MacRumors!
I hope the 1Password team take notes from this and once and for all start working real hard modernizing their aged and boring UI for the iOS app.
It supports YubiKey on Mac and iOS. I set it up this morning and the key works well.
It is best to add items manually, instead of importing from 1Password. Importing makes a mess of your Bitwarden vault.
Maybe it isn't important to have seamless cross platform integration for you, but it is to me
I guess we have different work flows
This thread got me thinking: Why have I read about 1Password so many times but never heard of Bitwarden before reading this thread?
The answer is simple: Money! Bitwarden has nothing or little to offer huge sites. 1Password on the other hand has it all and gets mentioned everywhere.
And now when 1Password—who’s made a lot of money by being mentioned on huge sites—got a very large number of customers they try to pull a stunt to throw people into subscription plans. Not nice. I’m leaving!
The answer is simple: Money! Bitwarden has nothing or little to offer huge sites. 1Password on the other hand has it all and gets mentioned everywhere.
And now when 1Password—who’s made a lot of money by being mentioned on huge sites—got a very large number of customers they try to pull a stunt to throw people into subscription plans. Not nice. I’m leaving!
I manage somehow without a password manager when I'm not using my own devices. Really strange, huh? and in the process, I'm not enabling these companies by supporting their business model.
Great! I'm glad you found something that works for you makes you feel good about yourself at the same time!
That's awesome!
Wow, did you copy my review on the AppStore? LOL.
It's so true, though. They made a nice little app, that was useful for storing a few snippets or even write longer texts and all of a sudden they think they're the second coming of Christ and charge you about the same as the entire MS Office suite!
I bought every single new version they released to actively support them but, obviously, that wasn't enough.
Try imagining a game developer doing the same, slapping together Pacman or Tetris and seriously expecting customers to pay monthly for it until the sun explodes. For some reason they need to release AAA titles year after year to keep the ball going. Yet here comes Ulysses and decides to live off and finance all the future Porsches and Lambos through one single niche app for eternity. Hilarious! As you already said, whatever happened to offering another app or two instead of snoring about in the office all day?!?