Why can we not have an explicit statement about 1Password being a subscription-only service?

soshiito

Hello AgileBits.

I would like to congratulate the team on the release today. As anticipated and appreciated it is very much the same as the Linux app. Having a variety of elements work differently based on operating system has long been a bane for 1Password users.

Aside from that I have criticism to offer which I hope you are open to. I wrote this in December 2020

The writing has been on the wall for years. AgileBits no longer has interest in standalone vaults, licenses, iCloud, Dropbox, or anything other than memberships.

Another six months has passed. AgileBits continues to erode licenses and standalone vaults as evidenced with today's beta for Windows. Yet there has been no announcement or public statement to this effect from the company, other than the coy "membership is the way forward" comments we see touted around this board. I would like to see AgileBits make a clear and concise statement that anything other than 1Password.com is effectively "dead and gone".

I am not unhappy with the direction the company is taking. My only wish is for clarity so that informed decisions can be made. Much frustration that I see as I browse these forums could be avoided if only the company were to be sincere in this regard. I am excited for you to launch this same app on macOS and mobile. As someone who uses a wide variety of devices in my work it will be such a relief to have the same 1Password experience wherever I end up.

Cheers.

dteare

Hello @soshiito,

Thank you for the kind words on the release and thanks for sharing your thoughts on formalizing our plan for licenses. 🤗

To make a long and interesting story short and to the point:

• The next generation of 1Password apps will take full advantage of 1Password.com (including .ca🇨🇦 & .eu🇪🇺) and as such will require a subscription to use 🔐
• Those with a standalone license can trade in their license for a special discount on a new 1Password membership 🙌🏼
• Gift cards are available for those who don’t have a credit card or prefer non-recurring payments ✌️

Of course the longer story is much more interesting so if you have 6 minutes to spare I'd love to share it. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, am not known for my brevity, and we have 15 years of history to go through so please forgive me for being unable to edit it down... 🙂

Nearly 5 years ago I wrote a post from the heart titled from a happy 1Password maker. In it I shouted from the rooftops about why we love 1Password memberships and why our newly created hosted service was so much better than what was possible with standalone licenses.

Since then 1Password memberships have become even more awesome. So much so that our next generation of apps were built to tightly integrate with our 1Password service and as such require a membership. And now that 1Password 8 for Windows is in early access we have ceased all license sales.

Let's take a moment to walk through the history of licenses & subscriptions, why we’ve decided to go all-in on memberships, and how license holders can trade in their license for a special discount.

A short history of 1Password licenses and memberships

When 1Password first launched in 2006 we only sold individual licenses. Subscriptions weren’t very common for software back then and a license approach felt right as we only supported Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger at the time.

This worked well for nearly a decade but by 2013 the cracks were already showing. By then we had client apps for all platforms, with each one requiring their own separate purchase, often across multiple app stores. And paid upgrades to major new versions were so incredibly painful for everyone involved that we rarely had any.

It wasn’t easy for customers to wrap their heads around the fact that 1Password was “licensed per person, per platform, with paid upgrades”, and quite frankly I would have a hard time figuring it out myself. It’s not only hard to understand but it’s difficult to even say.

We also had pushed standalone vaults (the underlying data format used by licenses) to their limit and couldn’t push them any further. Features like 2FA, secure remote password, account recovery, and many others weren’t feasible without connecting to a server to perform the heavy lifting.

Things came to a head in 2014 at NSNorth when our friends pushed us to create a service so they could use 1Password with their colleagues at work.

We knew we could do so much more for everyone if we created our own service. So we did. 1Password.com was launched to the world in November 2015 and it provided so much more than just another way to sync your data. Here are just the highlights on what our new service made possible:

• 🔐 More secure encryption data format and authentication process
• 📱 Two-factor authentication (2FA)
• 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦 Teams and families and businesses
• 🤗 Securely share items and files
• 🕓 Item history
• 🧯 Automated data backups
• 💫 Account recovery

Along with all these features 1Password.com also enabled a more intuitive setup across all your devices. We were in love! 😍

The overwhelming popularity of 1Password.com

When we launched our hosted 1Password.com service 5 years ago we knew it was the better solution but we wanted to give our customers time to learn this for themselves. So when we released 1Password 7 in 2018 we provided the ability to subscribe to 1Password.com as well as the option to purchase a license to continue using Standalone Vaults.

The overwhelming majority of people (97% in fact) choose to subscribe to our new service and many of those who initially purchased a license later changed their mind and traded it in for a membership.

Even though memberships won by a long shot, our existing apps already supported both so we continued to offer standalone licenses. This included support as well as new features and updates for license holders.

In our new apps, however, we needed to revisit this approach…

Introducing the next generation of 1Password apps

Every so often one needs to go back to the drawing board and rebuild things completely in order to soar to ever greater heights. This happens frequently in software and a few years ago we decided to completely recreate all the 1Password apps from the ground up.

We knew it would be a monumental effort to recreate over a decade’s worth of features across 6 operating systems but we needed a new foundation that would enable us to add the features we had planned and could support us for the coming decade.

We also knew that we had pushed standalone vaults to their limit and wouldn’t be able to improve them any further.

So once we hit reset and restarted from the beginning we designed the next generation of apps with the assumption that they would be working hand-in-hand with 1Password.com (as well as .ca🇨🇦 and .eu🇪🇺).

This would have been an incredibly hard decision to make if memberships weren’t as popular as they are. Thankfully the vast majority of our customers already choose memberships so it made our decision much easier. 🤗

It’s time to say goodbye to standalone licenses

Given the overwhelming popularity of 1Password memberships and how much more capable 1Password.com is then everything else, our next generation of 1Password apps will focus exclusively on memberships.

And now that we’ve started to roll out the next generation of 1Password apps, it’s time to say goodbye to standalone licenses.

Thankfully switching over to a membership is simple and you can easily migrate over all your existing data. Doing so now will enable you to use the next generation of 1Password apps when they are officially released later this year.

To switch to a 1Password membership all you need to do is create an account on 1Password.com, 1Password.ca, or 1Password.eu and add it to 1Password. See Move your existing 1Password data to a 1Password account for full details.

Thank you for supporting us all these years 🤗

As a license holder we know you’ve been supporting us for a long time. Many of you have been with us since the very beginning. We’ve been here for 15 years now and there’s no way we could have made it this far without you. 🥰

We’d like to thank you for supporting us all these years and provide a special trade-in discount for your license. Simply email us your license and enjoy 50% off your first 3 years.

That’s a great deal for those of you who prefer to pay-as-you-go (either monthly or yearly) but we recognize that some people would prefer to only pay when they explicitly authorize it.

If this sounds like you we set up a special deal where you can purchase a $99 gift card worth $150 of credit (only available on 1Password.com), allowing you to use 1Password for over 3 years. Once those 3+ years are up you can choose whether or not to pay again. No recurring or automatic payments will be taken and your data will always be available whether you renew or not.

To take advantage of either discount, simply email us your license and we’ll let you know how to proceed to start enjoying your new 1Password membership.

Thanks again for supporting us all these years. Your constant support and encouragement means the world to us. ❤️🤗

Sorry for the essay but I expect others will have questions here as well and will be coming here for answers so I wanted to get all my thoughts down in one place. 👋

Love Dave,
A Happy 1Password Maker ❤️ 🇨🇦

soshiito

I remember those image licenses. I wonder if I still have one somewhere. 🤔 Undoubtedly the most impressive way to license an app ever.

It’s time to say goodbye to standalone licenses

This is clear. Thank you for the straight forward answer.

only available on 1Password.com

I hate to continue to be critical after you have given me exactly what I asked for. I have to ask why this is only available on 1Password.com after you have talked up 1Password.eu and 1Password.ca. Surely you have Canadian and European customers who would like to take advantage too? In fact I can say for sure that you do. 😁Please?

apike

For what it's worth, I would happy to pay a subscription, and I would love to get the new nicer inline UI that the new extension offers. So far, though, users like me who use Chrome, Brave, or Firefox with Dropbox or iCloud synced vaults are stuck on the "classic" extension.

I sync passwords outside 1Password.com because I want there to be two independent entities coordinating to secure my passwords. I want 1Password to make a vault that you believe is secure, and have a different service sync that vault for me in a way they think is secure. If one of the two stacks is compromised, an attacker would need to also compromise the other stack, which they're unlikely to do in a timely way in a non-targeted attack.

In the two-service case, if somebody bypassed iCloud's security, they'd just get access to a 1Password-encrypted vault. If somebody figured out how to bypass 1Password's security, they still wouldn't have access to the actual vaults stored on whatever cloud vendors.

On the other hand, if you store and sync your passwords fully on 1Password's systems – or iCloud's systems for that matter – then those passwords' safety depends exclusively on the bulletproofness of that entity. By owning the whole stack, that system is now one of the highest value targets imaginable.

One concern of a two-entity setup like this is that both entities can independently lose or interrupt access to the passwords. An error by 1Password or the sync vendor could lock me out. For some people that's alarming, but since passwords can be reset, password loss is an acceptable failure mode in my view. All passwords being lost would be an annoyance, but all passwords being potentially compromised at once is an emergency of staggering proportions.

So for now, I have the 1Password classic extension, and my passwords synced using another service. But I worry that anything dubbed "classic" seems not long for this world, and I pine for the nicer inline password UI of the new extension. People with this security mindset may not be enough of a market to motivate bringing support for this to the new extension – but if we are, it would be much appreciated.

dteare

You’re very welcome, @soshiito. And I agree completely: those license images were incredible. 🤗 @roustem and @danvpeterson hit it out of the park there. 🙌

You’re right about the gift cards; it would be lovely to be able to accept them everywhere. There’s technical challenges there as each region is completely isolated from one another. It’s one of those things that on the surface seems super simple but in practice turn out to be quite difficult. One day I hope we can.

Take care,
++dave;

plttn

Now forgive me for sounding a bit out of my depth here (and also not really a person with any skin in the game), but for the people who want CA/EU gift cards (especially as it applies now to the harder to convince customers from local vaults), would it not be possible to just offer region specific gift cards? I'm sure the people who are at the point of switching to CA/EU siloed accounts would understand the implications of their gift card not being transferable?

dteare

Yeah, given our setup we’d either need to do that or preferably setup an intermediary that each region could talk to.

Both are doable. They both just take more time than we have at the moment. We haven’t seen many folks choose this path but if we see enough demand for this we can move it up on the priority list.

++dave;

DenalB

Hey Dave!

Thanks for the kind words and the explanation. :+1:

I never used a standalone license, but I think I know what license holders are thinking about switching to a membership. So, it would be more than great to offer gift cards for EU and CA customers as well to make switching as attractive as possible for them. :)

Manaburner

I just wanted to give my +1 to 1Password offering gift cards for EU and CA as well. Especially for switchers this would be an interesting and welcome option. But also for me as a long time 1Password.eu user, I would love to have gift cards and maybe even save some money with them :)

dteare

Thanks for chiming in! It helps us a lot as we continue to juggle priorities. 🤗

I can't make any promises on this as I've seen our list for the coming year (spoiler alert: it's full! 😳) so we'll need to bump something if we decide to go forward here. We all want our cake and be able to eat it, too, and there's many cakes I hope we can have. 🙂

++dave;

tetardbleu

Hi,
First, I'm really happy that this post was created and to have an official (and passionate) statement about the future of 1password and licenses. For those of us exploring the forum regularly, it was pretty obvious, but still... It was about time ! I was desperating reading posts from users about a licensed copy of the app, without a clear answer from the team, so, thanks and congratulations on finally announcing a clear path !

Secondly, I would also be very happy with gift cards for other regions. I understand how creating an intermediary for gift codes to communicate between regions could be a challenge. I less understand however why create gift cards for each region separately could also be one, given that the interface to insert a gift code is already present in each region. I would be interested to understand why (no hidden sarcasm here, just sincere curiosity).
I look forward to discovering 1password 8 for mac.
Regards

dteare

Thank you, @tetardbleu. 🤗

As for gift cards across all the regions, it's not that big of a lift to go that route but we'd need update the designs and stores to handle the other regions. The thing is we really do need to choose priorities as even the simplest sounding task ends up taking a lot more of people's attention than initial estimates. And quite frankly we all had too much on our plates back during "normal" times and with the changes in the world over the last year we all could use some more slack to help balance out the added stresses we have in our lives now. ❤️

The other aspect of this is the experience will be pretty bad for those who accidentally buy from one store and use it on another region. I'd much rather find a way where we wouldn't have that problem.

Again, it's great to dream and we should continue doing so but our plates are full right now. We've had a very successful early access launch on Windows and it's tempting to start adding things to our todo list but we need all need our team focused on getting this to an official launch and inviting all our other platforms to join in on the party. That and staying healthy. 🙏🏻

tetardbleu

Thanks, @dteare

The other aspect of this is the experience will be pretty bad for those who accidentally buy from one store and use it on another region. I'd much rather find a way where we wouldn't have that problem.

Someone from your team told me that once if I remember correctly, but I honestly think this is a problem that could be mitigated at least! For example, with the start page of the store forcing the user to choose a region before buying, or with a clear design for each gift card (containing country/region flag on it).

CGDisplayBounds

For old users like me:

• For those who would like to keep old good offline password management, I just recommend KeePassXC or The Standard Unix Password Manager: Pass.
• Or if you really think you need to adopt subscription model — compare them, don't be blind.

---

Pressure

I think it's just okay to shift to whatever model to keep the applications and company healthy, but this entire shadowy 'approach / implicit pressure' to old users that I experienced in the last 2 or 3 years... was not acceptable.
I completely lost trust to 1Password in the end.
If I knew this, I didn't purchase 1Password 7 but rather had used time for learning the other password ecosystems.

I'm not talking about the quality of the application, but the attitude and stance for users.

Comparison

Well, when one asked to pay for an upgrade, that's natural for what it's worth. Developers did their work and we pay for it. And I've been satisfied with that with 1Password. I even thought your work worth more pay.

BUT, if business model changes — that's entirely another story.

Say, you are notified that a product you are using will be subscription-based in the future. Then, you compare and re-evaluate products that are using that model, then you decide the one you feel the best. Isn't that natural?

Good luck

I'm done with 1Password though, it's also true I enjoyed it buddy — Good luck! 👍

dteare

Hello @CGDisplayBounds,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings with us. 🤗 I'm sorry I made you feel this way. It certainly wasn't my intent!

When we released 1Password 7 over three years ago we had the choice to go subscription-only at that time. It was something we talked about at length internally as we knew it was an important decision that would affect many of our users. We had two perfectly good working approaches available and had the opportunity to give our long-term supporters who got us to were we where the choice of which one they preferred. So that's exactly what we did.

There were multiple possible outcomes to this vote and we simply didn't know where our users would lead us. If our friends and supporters went with licenses for their individual accounts in droves then we would have kept our membership offerings focused on families and businesses. If there was a tie we would have needed to continue supporting both standalone licenses and memberships together for individual accounts. And if our customers saw the same value in 1Password memberships that we knew they had then we would follow their lead and go all in on memberships.

It wasn't a foregone conclusion and we didn't know what our customers would decide. You see a similar experiment happening today with CleanShot and Dropshare.app/Dropshare.cloud as they too put both approaches to their customers to see which they prefer. They don't know with certainty where things will land just like we didn't know when we introduced ours.

Over the last 3 years our customers made it perfectly clear to us that they saw the value of our membership plan as they picked subscribing over 30 times more often than those who purchased a license. When over 95% of our users voted with their money for subscriptions we knew we had our marching orders. As great as our 1Password.com service is already there are a ton more features we want to add and we'll be able to do so with much higher velocity by focusing all our efforts there.

I'm sorry that this felt like "implicit pressure" to you; I didn't mean to cause you any anxiety at all. Your 1Password 7 license is still perfectly valid for 1Password 7 and always will be. We had many free updates for 1Password 7 on both Mac and Windows over the years and while some of the changes were specific to memberships the majority of them were for everybody as we wanted to make sure you and the other license holders got their money's worth on their investment. We also did our best to make it clear that 1Password 8 would be a paid upgrade when the time came and while 1Password 8 still isn't released, now that our future direction is perfectly clear we have gone ahead and stopped selling licenses.

Hindsight is 20/20 and it's easy to assume we knew exactly where the chips would land. We didn't. We had hopes for where they would but at the time there was still a very large anti-subscription group of folks on the internet and we had no way of knowing what our users would choose without asking them. The other moving part is over the years subscriptions have slowly but surely become more acceptable for software by the general public.

All in all I'm sad that I pissed off a great customer and I'm truly sorry about that. With that said, I don't see how I could have done a better job navigating these seas. Many many sleepless nights were spent on this by myself and many others on our team. With all the things we needed to balance and the data we had at the time, I think we navigated the waters pretty well overall. Certainly not perfectly, but as well as could be expected.

I sincerely hope that we can win you back someday. We'll continue shipping great software and with any luck our paths will cross again. 🤞

As for comparing 1Password to other competitors, I agree completely that folks should choose 1Password with their eyes wide open. I'm happy to have happy users and am thrilled to have users that are fully educated because when I look at competitors frankly there's no contest. We beat them hands down on security, privacy, experience, capabilities, and productivity. And I'm super proud to be able to say that there's no need to take just our word for it as we're the only password manager to ever be a finalist for an Apple Design Award:

😍

Take care and stay safe out there. I hope to see you again someday. 🤗

VT1P

I have only ever used the licensed version, since 1P4. When will 1P8 for Mac be coming out? I expect I can still use 1P7 until it no longer runs on a future version of MacOS, but I will probably do a trial (free?) of 1P8.com and then take advantage of your license trade-in discount if 1P8 works for me. I do appreciate what an excellent product 1P is, either as a standalone or as a cloud-served password manager.

danco

I am one of the people who feels we need gift cards for .ca and .eu. I made a deliberate political decision to move from .com to .eu as a gesture of support for the EU (I am in the UK). Not that anyone would notice, but it made me feel good, and I also thought it might be technically better to have the data centre closer to home. I am still willing to accept the extra cost, but wish it was not necessary.

zaxxon

Thank you for the (finally) clear statement about bought licenses for 1P8. It seems that our history together is coming to an end. I just checked in my 1P vault, there's a V3 license from 2009 in there...
While I am only using a tiny subset of features, I was more than happy to throw some money in 'your' direction from time to time to keep things rolling. While my iPhone is on V7, I recently found out that my Mac is still on V6, so I was holding out for V8 to upgrade the whole show. And I had a few 'old' people queued up to finally get them to use a password manager.

well... not paying subscriptions. With import/export coming to Monterey, I think it is time to say good bye and to thank you for spearheading password management when everybody was using excel lists....

So long, and thanks for all the fish
simon

dteare

@VT1P: Thank you for the kind words. 🤗 There is indeed a free trial available so you'll be able to try things out first. As for the release date of 1Password 8 for Mac, we have a specific date we're aiming for but I'm not at liberty to share that just yet. 🙂 There's always a lot of uncertainty in release planning so I don't want to get too specific. I will say, however, that your summer will be a fun one. 😉

@danco: I can totally relate to your gesture of support for the EU. 🤗 They do a lot of things right and I hope someday more folks will see the good aspects instead of focusing solely on the (often perceived but sometimes real) negative side of things.

@zaxxon: Thank you for supporting us all these years! 🙏🏻 1Password 3 was a great version and I have so many wonderful memories associated with that release. It was our first paid upgrade ever and the Mac community was so supportive. 😍 I'd hate to see you go after 12 years of being together, but of course you're free to go where ever you think best. Roustem and I made sure folks would never be locked in as we wanted happy users, not locked-in ones. With that said, I feel compelled to ask what is it about subscriptions that has you so concerned? They simplify things considerably and ensure we continue to see a steady source or income so we can continue building higher and supporting you and everyone else. And we've priced things very competitively so things work out to be equal to a paid upgrade every two years, and even more so when trading in your license. In either case, we'll continue preparing the best "fish" possible and will be ready to welcome you back with open arms if (and hopefully when! 🤞) you change your mind. 🤗 Take care and thank you again for supporting us for over a decade. 😘

++dave;

VT1P

Thanks, dteare! You said "There's always a lot of uncertainty in release planning so I don't want to get too specific. I will say, however, that your summer will be a fun one."

That is an excellent answer. Do you have permission from your boss to be so forthcoming?

DenalB

Do you have permission from your boss to be so forthcoming?

He is one of the bosses, @VT1P . ;)
https://1password.com/company/meet-the-team/dave-teare/

zaxxon

I would say, Dave is THE boss.

@Dave your answers really make it hard to leave. Of course that's also your spiel, it really shows that this is a remarkable company.

Why no subscriptions.. I am really using a very minor subset of the functions, all the fancy stuff is lost on me because I don't need it. That's why I don't mind paying from time to time even when I don't need to (because I can and because I want), but having to pay because I have to is a no-go. Same reason I don't have Netflix, Apple Music etc.
I admire the functionality you built into 1P over the years, and if I were a software developer, I'd envy the love you get on twitter. As an example, for the same reasons, I admire Setapp, but I don't use it.

I fully understand your need for a sustainable source of income, it won't just be coming from me. But judging by twitter, that won't be a problem because you are on a roll.

Thank you for taking very good care of my passwords for over a decade.

best regards
simon

DenalB

Could it be possible to pin this discussion to the top of the category? It would be great if it would not be lost. :)

dteare

@VT1P: I won't tell my boss if you don't. 🤫 😂

@DenalB: Thanks for the idea but no thank you. We used to pin lots of conversations and it becomes a real mess, especially for new comers. I much prefer to pin one thread or two at most and for it to be something that affects everyone, like the Early Access announcement itself and new updates. Stuff like that. The rest get bumped up automatically based on popularity and I'm guessing this thread will stay on the front page for the foreseeable future. 🙂

@zaxxon: Thank you again for all the kind words. 🤗 Clearly you're a great person Simon and it breaks my heart that we need to part ways. 💔 I think you already know but just in case there's several things we did to make sure our subscription would be as approachable as possible. Of course we have a really good price plus a nice discount for those who trade in their licenses but we did many more things as well. Like having a yearly purchase option (plus a nice discount!) for those who don't like monthly payment, gift cards for those who don't have a credit card or prefer non-recurring payments, and making sure we never lock you out of your data even if your subscription lapses.

We also have a really compelling family plan that allows you to pay about a buck a month per family member when you get your whole family together. I'm not sure about your family size or status, but if you have a brother or sister you can make this a present for them for their birthday or Christmas, or join their family plan and let it be a present for you. With the family plan everyone gets their own personal vault so you can keep things private or shared however you see fit. So depending on your situation you might be able to score a free account or win some good karma by sharing the love.

Finally we also have free team accounts for open source projects as well as well as a free 1Password Families membership when you use 1Password Business. If your company is using 1Password Business you get a families account completely free so you'd be supporting us and paying even less than you did previously. A win-win for sure. 😃

I'm not sure if either of those are an option for you. I hope so as it would be great to continue our relationship. If not, I understand and we'll need to part ways. At least temporarily anyway. We'll keep pushing forward to make 1Password the best it can be and with any luck we'll be able to woo you with some new features and get back together. Hopefully our paths will cross again someday. Until then, take care and stay safe out there! 🤗

++dave;

TonyHall

I know it's irrational, but I'm kinda sad that my days with 1Password are now probably numbered. I understand why 1P have chosen the path they are following, it's just that it's a path I doubt I will share.

I've been using 1P since v3 and my use case is a very simple one - two ageing Macs and an iPhone.

The past troubled year has taught me that subscriptions are only justifiable (for me) if they are absolutely essential and the only option available.

For these two reasons I think Apple's improving password solution may be all I actually need, although some detailed research will be required. However, I will continue to use v7 until it finally stops working securely with my setup.

I would like to thank the 1P staff for their ethics, enthusiasm and excellent product (although I confess I haven't found v7 as satisfying as previous versions despite its superior functionality).

All the very best.

Cheers,
Tony

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ComplainyGuy

Memberships/subscriptions are great for developers, creating a steady, predictable revenue stream. As with all subscriptions and memberships that automatically renew, the cost of an app is never fixed, but constantly going up. Additionally, it's up to the consumer to remember to cancel...so many memberships and subscriptions continue long after people stop using them. Why not offer licensed users a paid upgrade?

macindigo

@ComplainyGuy

There's an intrinsic problem with subscriptions other than the long term cost consideration. The larger issue is that aside from bug fixes, subscribers are going to expect something in return for their subscription payments.

Releasing a new version whose sole purpose is to fix bugs is not going to fly with subscribers. Bug fixes are an implied agreement in software licensing; as it should be. The result of this is that "features" and "enhancements" are added in order to justify subscription payments.

There are two problems with this; 1: most users don't need the new enhancements and 2: added new features that complicate the software and potentially create issues due to untested new code.

So what is the resolution to this conflict of interest? Software companies want a reliable stream of revenue versus their users who provide the revenue but expect something "more" for their subscription payments. It would appear that a compromise of sorts is in order.

Users should consider whether reliability and bug fixes payments are worthwhile. My ~40+ years in IT boils the question down this; pay for software to do what I initially licensed it to do more reliably versus added bells and whistles because I've made those monthly payments but which may result in new additional problems.

On the other hand, software developers should commit to supporting the software that users have licensed. For example, 1Password 6 is no longer supported but there is no reason that it shouldn't be other than that may impede subscription sales.

The 1Password 6 Safari extension issue is often cited as the reason that 1Password users need to upgrade to 1Password 7 subscriptions. However, the fact of the matter is that a Safari extension for current macOS versions and some minor UI tweaks could be implemented in 1Password 6 relatively easily. A quick look at the version history for 6 vs 7 quickly dispels any question of what to do.

It isn't necessary to support all previous versions of 1Password. The answer is to implement a method where all previous licensees are upgraded to 1Password 6.8.9 at no cost. The hit on Agilebits revenue would be neglible because those users probably won't pay for an upgrade anyway. However, this would alleviate Agilebits problem of support for versions prior to 1Password 6.8.9.

Agilebits should consider releasing a version that has no sharing, collaboration, families, business, cloud requirements nor subscriptions.

1Password Classic; one vault, syncing to a phone via WLAN and support for all current browsers.

MikeV99

I have an old Mac whose OS is no longer upgradable but it still runs great. I have an old iPhone 6+ that is at the end of it’s OS but it still works great. More and more often I am told by an app that it needs a newer version of OS in order to upgrade. The app often implies that it needs to upgrade because of security or performance issues. I’ve not upgraded my newer Apple laptop OS because my standalone Photoshop won’t work. I have thousands of images but don’t do enough editing to justify a membership but do not want to give up the ability to mess around with a photo. A standalone license gives me that ability. Maybe Adobe should offer a lifetime membership to long time customers who are at the end of their cycle.

It would not surprise me to have a subscription app tell me that my current platform is too old and the app will no longer function after the upcoming upgrade. 1PW7 on Win 10 with Edge no longer has a browser extension that works. The solution I have been given is to buy a subscription. Will 1PW8 still run and continue to run on my old platforms? Am I to be forced to buy new computers and devices?

My wife is 80 and I will be 80 in January. I have been a customer for many of those years and have gone through many upgrades. Rather than an annual membership, what would a lifetime 1PW membership cost?

DenalB

Hi @MikeV99 !

1PW7 on Win 10 with Edge no longer has a browser extension that works.

The classic extension should still work in Edge on Windows 10 with 1PW7. And it supports local vaults. Maybe you could give it a try?
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/1password-extension-deskt/aomjjhallfgjeglblehebfpbcfeobpgk

MikeV99

@DenalB

Thank you for the suggestion. I’ve done them all. Some on the 1PW Chrome extension page have reported the same problem "Needs the Desktop app” to work. I received a long email from 1PW that basically said "Get a subscription."