Fallback licence on subscriptions

Welcome to the forum, @jioannou! Thanks for taking the time to share such a clearly well-thought out set of ideas with us. :)

Currently I own a 1password 6 licence on mac, and I would be interested in continue buying licences instead of paying for subscription but it seems that this won't be an option in the future. I know that you have 1password 7 licences available, but you try to hide this information which probably means that you don't want to offer this option anymore.

We don't "hide" this information, we just don't promote it on our website or pricing pages. Licenses have indeed been de-emphasized because 1password.com memberships are by far the best way to use 1Password today, for the vast majority of users. But as you note, we do still offer standalone licenses, and we've made no announcement one way or the other about the future (1Password 8 or beyond). You're welcome to purchase a license for 1Password 7 for Windows or 1Password 7 for Mac or both, and it will be supported for as long as those versions are current, and likely well beyond (we still regularly assist customers still using 1Password 3 for Mac, for example).

If I switch to the subscription model I have to pay for as long as I am using your software and if for some reason I decide to stop paying then I only have readonly access which makes the password manager unusable.

If we were to continue both models, standalone licenses and 1password.com memberships indefinitely, and you chose to stick with licenses, then wouldn't you be "having to pay for as long as you use the software" anyway? It would just be in the form of larger, lump-sum payments for licenses for each new, single version of 1Password, spaced out over greater time (1-2 years maybe per version, instead of monthly or annually for a subscription). Yes, you would have the option not to pay for a particular new version, but remember, new versions come with security and compatibility fixes you can't see, as well as the flashy new UI and new features you can see. We can't recommend users stick with old, out-of-development versions of our software just as we wouldn't recommend they stick with old versions of macOS or their browsers. Not only is it bad security practice, but if you keep upgrading everything else (that doesn't cost money) like your OS and browser, you'll run into incompatibilities as well if you intentionally choose NOT to upgrade 1Password. In fact, this exact thing is happening currently with 1Password 4 for Windows users because Google changed the certificate and that now-retired version doesn't have the new cert, so if you upgrade Chrome to version 72, 1Password 4 for Windows now will not connect with the latest version of Chrome or fill/save data there.

Of course I would lose 1password.com sync but that's fine. I could use a third party sync.

You could, certainly, and many people do, but making this change from a 1password.com account to a standalone setup isn't quite as simple as your sentence makes it sound. You wouldn't just be able to "switch your sync" and continue merrily along; you'd have to manually download all Document items you had in your 1password.com account, then switch 1Password for Mac to allow local vaults, transfer all your items over from the 1password.com vault to the newly-created standalone vault within 1Password for Mac, then re-save/attach all the external files you had downloaded (and figure out which items they should be attached to, since standalone 1Password doesn't have Documents, only direct attachments) and then set up your advanced sync method on all devices, and finally remove your 1password.com account from all devices, and make sure you'd set up any related processes (like installing Dropbox) that you'd need for that. In short, though of course you can do everything I just described, it's not a simple, snap-of-the-fingers process because of the difference in how the two methods (standalone and 1password.com accounts) work. In fact, it's probably not much less time-consuming than switching password managers would be. To be clear, I'm not suggesting you switch password managers; we're very glad you like 1Password, and very much hope you choose to stay with us. But if you're (as you said) "a bit lazy to get into the trouble of switching" (password managers), then I'm not sure why you say you'd be willing to go through the process I just described.

And even if you were willing to do all of that, what would happen the next time we released an upgrade you decided you liked? Would you switch back to 1password.com membership, and go through the reverse of that process?

We certainly want all of our users to be happy with what they get, but we've also made some choices along the way about what it means to use 1Password in these different ways. Many of our users are not nearly so proficient with either 1Password or computers in general as are some longer-term users who are more knowledgeable. Bottom line: I don't think we'll be pursuing this path, but I can certainly mention it to the development team. In the meantime, I'd suggest you (re)consider a 1password.com membership. You get all of our 1Password apps (Mac, Windows, iOS and Android) at no extra charge including all major upgrades, for as long as you maintain the account...and you can cancel at any time and not be billed again. And if you decide you want to revert to a standalone setup, we have those licenses available. Hope this helps! :)