1. I don’t like or want subscription software. I shouldn’t have to pay continuously to retain access to features I’ve paid for for years and it’s not ok to potentially lose access to my main method of creating and accessing secure logins across devices if I stop paying (which could be by choice or, whether temporary or permanently, involuntarily/accidentally).
2. I don’t want to store my data on their servers. I have ways of securely syncing data that I trust and that use only devices I control. For reasons of trust, security, etc. I want control of where my vaults are stored and it not to be the same company as the one that provides the software (for some machines/vaults I can also prevent 1Password from accessing the internet at all, to ensure the vault can’t leave a secure network, for instance).
3. If everything I store in synced folders was a separately charged service I’d be paying thousands a month. This trend is unsustainable and unwanted. I see absolutely no incremental value in the hosting service so I don’t want to pay for it.
3. The whole sleazy business model that pushes users towards subscriptions and makes it harder and harder to stay on self hosted vaults and uses things like this, described by them as the most requested feature, as leverage to try and force more users to switch. When the subscription model was introduced there were assurances to concerned customers that we were valued and this self hosted sync method would be supported. I am fine not getting features that are and should be deeply integrated with and require their hosting service (I also have no interest in ever having access to my vault via a web browser, which has the potential for horrible enough security properties that I’m glad it’s not an option (and I don’t have the time or inclination to have a feature which I don’t require anyway audited)). But when an entire desktop client is put in that bucket, it is because someone decided to make it so to try and get us to fall in line, not because it needs to be. Not the action of a company that respects any the users who still want to self host like they say they did.
At this point, with what appears to be a company that’s hostile to my use case, it’s getting difficult to justify spending more money at the next upgrade just to avoid the one time pain of evaluating options and switching to something that’s potentially better for my needs (if it, say, has a full
Linux client I can use). If I move I’ll also likely plan to switch over the teams I manage that do use the subscription model. Subscription software makes far more sense in a corporate setting, and if the 1Password account fits the threat model then great, I use it, but if I am no longer using or evaluating 1Password (especially when the reason is partly trust in the company itself), that gets trickier, as does continuing to recommend it to others.