Live data from Hacker News

Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

blog.agilebits.com

211–220 of 484 posts

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#211

So, I'll join the chorus here by saying that I've picked up the subscription fee. I've been using their software daily for over three years. During that time, they have consistently improved their product and have been open about issues (as far as I am concerned). I was a little irked when I saw the subscription model. I was like, "hey, I paid for this." So, I looked up how much I paid in licenses by looking them up.…

You are making the same mistake with these arguments as many people make; nobody is complaining about paying for software.

People are complaining about subscriptions, because for example you easily loose track of what exactly it is your paying for.

Paying for an upgrade clearly shows you that you're paying some amount for some list of new features. You can then choose whether or not it's worth paying for. (just to name 1 disadvantage.)

For customers there are 0 benefits to a subscription model. For companies of course there are many.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#212

1Password for Mac and iOS worked flawlessly. But I recently migrated to Windows and installed 1Password 6 for Windows. It's just bad software. It's not responsive (I'm pressing "Save" and it works for a second or two, while I'm expecting it to respond instantly), it has some obvious UI bugs, but worse of all, it crashes very often, I don't remember a single program that crashes so much. It just feels very unpolished.…

.NET Core is just as native as Java on Linux...

I happen to be Java developer, so for me personally Java is fine. But yes, something like Go or Rust would be even better.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#213
post #208
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of a password manager is some kind of multi-device password sharing. Plain macOS keychain doesn't do that at all. There are certainly ways to manually emulate parts of the behaviour of a password manager, whether it's with Keychain Access or post its in your wallet (or various combinations thereof). Password managers are about automating all that.

It is multi device though. Sure it’s Apple only, but it’s all my Apple devices, macOS and iOS (I don’t have a watch or a TV), not just wherever the password was created.

It's not. Keychain is not synced across devices. iCloud keychain, a separate service, can sync parts of keychain.

iCloud keychain is a perfectly reasonable (and as a UI, probably better than anything else) password manager iff you use Safari as your main browser and all your other devices are Apple devices.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#214

So, I'll join the chorus here by saying that I've picked up the subscription fee. I've been using their software daily for over three years. During that time, they have consistently improved their product and have been open about issues (as far as I am concerned). I was a little irked when I saw the subscription model. I was like, "hey, I paid for this." So, I looked up how much I paid in licenses by looking them up.…

You are making the same mistake with these arguments as many people make; nobody is complaining about paying for software. People are complaining about subscriptions , because for example you easily loose track of what exactly it is your paying for. Paying for an upgrade clearly shows you that you're paying some amount for some list of new features. You can then choose whether or not it's worth paying for. (just to n…

> For customers there are 0 benefits to a subscription model. For companies of course there are many.

OP described in detail the benefit for customers--constantly updated software. Critical for something as security conscience as a password manager.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#215

So, I'll join the chorus here by saying that I've picked up the subscription fee. I've been using their software daily for over three years. During that time, they have consistently improved their product and have been open about issues (as far as I am concerned). I was a little irked when I saw the subscription model. I was like, "hey, I paid for this." So, I looked up how much I paid in licenses by looking them up.…

As time goes on, I've gotten less and less comfortable using proprietary software for critical tasks. If 1Password were open source, I'd actually be pretty happy to subscribe. But as it stands, I have no faith that the product won't change out from under me in the future, whether due to a pivot, an acquisition, or some other reason. The incentives align in favor of the business, not the customer. IMHO, subscriptions…

So if the app were open source and the maintainers decided to abandon it, are you going to download the code and keep it updated? If it is forked are you going to trust the new maintainers? Are you going to audit the source code?

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As time goes on, I've gotten less and less comfortable using proprietary software for critical tasks. If 1Password were open source, I'd actually be pretty happy to subscribe. But as it stands, I have no faith that the product won't change out from under me in the future, whether due to a pivot, an acquisition, or some other reason. The incentives align in favor of the business, not the customer. IMHO, subscriptions…

So if the app were open source and the maintainers decided to abandon it, are you going to download the code and keep it updated? If it is forked are you going to trust the new maintainers? Are you going to audit the source code?

If it was a matter of OS compatibility, I'd certainly be able to do it for iOS or macOS. Security, less so, but with luck there would be others to do that work, if the app had enough users. Surely it would be better than just implicitly trusting some company with a profit motive?

I'm not expecting anyone to do the work for free, by the way. You could still charge money for cloud sync or even app extensions and still keep the main repo open. Maybe the code could be a few revisions behind to incentivize people to pay.

In any case, from looking around, it seems that KeePass and possibly Bitwarden fit this bill.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#217

So, I'll join the chorus here by saying that I've picked up the subscription fee. I've been using their software daily for over three years. During that time, they have consistently improved their product and have been open about issues (as far as I am concerned). I was a little irked when I saw the subscription model. I was like, "hey, I paid for this." So, I looked up how much I paid in licenses by looking them up.…

It sounds like you feel like you underpaid. Then the solution is for them to charge more or charge for more of their products, not a subscription. A subscription basically forces you into paying for upgrades.

The only thing a subscription model is good for is it wrestes power from the consumer.

With the traditional model if they decide to stop updating the app, you wouldn’t buy the next version, and that would be your leverage. With a subscription model, they can decide to stop deivering updates, or deliver lower quality updates, and you’d be forced to pay perpetually just to keep the existing software operational.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the same mistake with these arguments as many people make; nobody is complaining about paying for software. People are complaining about subscriptions , because for example you easily loose track of what exactly it is your paying for. Paying for an upgrade clearly shows you that you're paying some amount for some list of new features. You can then choose whether or not it's worth paying for. (just to n…

> For customers there are 0 benefits to a subscription model. For companies of course there are many. OP described in detail the benefit for customers--constantly updated software. Critical for something as security conscience as a password manager.

People updated software before they started using subscription models.

Paying for software meant they had to make more compelling updates.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#219

So, I'll join the chorus here by saying that I've picked up the subscription fee. I've been using their software daily for over three years. During that time, they have consistently improved their product and have been open about issues (as far as I am concerned). I was a little irked when I saw the subscription model. I was like, "hey, I paid for this." So, I looked up how much I paid in licenses by looking them up.…

You are making the same mistake with these arguments as many people make; nobody is complaining about paying for software. People are complaining about subscriptions , because for example you easily loose track of what exactly it is your paying for. Paying for an upgrade clearly shows you that you're paying some amount for some list of new features. You can then choose whether or not it's worth paying for. (just to n…

Of course it's all upside for the company and down for the customer. Which company wouldn't love predictable revenue from customers every month. It's an amazing business model for software businesses, especially when the customer completely forgets about it and just let's their card be charged every month.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#220

The Mac App Store makes it impossible to charge for software customers have already paid for? Tragic.

Not impossible, hackish.

You can emulate upgrade pricing via bundles.

If you sold V1 for $5.00 and then you want to sell V2 to new customers for $5.00 but existing customers. You can bundle the two versions for $8.00 and in the description for V1 you tell them that version 2 is available and don't buy it. You tell customers that have bought V1 already to get the bundle for $3.

Post reply on HN