…but they will still be selling individual non-subscription licenses through their own website, so anyone who wants to avoid a subscription can still do so.
Still, this is a trend I will have nothing to do with if at all possible. And besides subscriptions, version 7 will only sync using their back-end, which is not acceptable for me.
On one hand, password managers in browsers are becoming nearly good enough to cover for 80% of my use cases, and most of the other 20% boil down to convenience (ease of pasting, updating, etc.)
I don't like the idea of being forced to move to a subscription on my Mac and on iOS for diminishing returns in feature improvements -- and I've been using 1Password for many years now, so the need to finance new features is something that I understand but have seen little return from.
By all means ensure you can sustain revenue, but beware of inflated subscription prices.
(I've been keeping tabs on alternatives for a while now, so I will likely not upgrade to 1Password 7)
>And besides subscriptions, version 7 will only sync using their back-end, which is not acceptable for me.
What. I'm using 1Password 7 with a standalone license. I installed the beta, paid the $40 it cost for a license, and it works fine with iCloud and Dropbox same as always, I moved right from 1Password 4 and the only change I did was to purposefully force a resync so that all shared keychains would be updated from the ancient format to the newer one (if you were on 1P6 that wouldn't be necessary).
I'm not a fan of their subscription efforts because I think it's actively subtracted from what they could have done for the standalone version, and I don't think they've been fully honest about it which absolutely rankles. They talk big about benefits but they don't actually acknowledge costs or the profit motive. Even so there is a really oddly high load of objectively, trivially disproved FUD swirling around these HN articles about them now and I don't fully understand why.
Anyone making software wants Abobe/Microsoft margins and enterprise like recurring revenue for their random product.
At least in the case of 1password the rate isn’t usurious, but the biggest problem they have is due to a business decision to make the product dependent on a SaaS-like service delivery model.
If it's cloud-based sync, then a subscription model makes sense, but I've yet to find a subscription price that is in line with what I think is reasonable (~$2 / month) for the service.
What alternatives do you have in mind? I was thinking the same, but haven't done much research yet. I definitely want to have more control over my passwords.
I'm not sure what your criteria are but I've been using LastPass (Enterprise) with 2FA (Yubikey) for a couple years now. Aside from the Yubikey, the key benefit is I can share a folder with someone using the free version.
It's not cheap but it works and afaik it's secure (esp with the Yubi).
1Password Family accounts have support for free guest accounts that can be used to share information with other people without requiring them to purchase.
