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Comment by aljungberg | Hacker News Reader

This may become another example of a good company catering well to a specific niche, then taking on money until they are unable to cater well to their original niche anymore.

Solving a specific problem well in a market worth $X is not compatible with taking 10 * $X in funding — you will be forced to start doing something else so you can make ROI. Along the way you’ll probably alienate your existing market by price gouging (like switching to a subscription based service model for a simple app), so there won’t be any turning back either.

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> (like switching to a subscription based service model for a simple app)

1Password did this a couple years back, before they even took on funding!

Maybe your choice of example was a sly reference to exactly that, sorry if it was and I'm explaining your joke :). If that was your intent I hope my comment at least makes it clear to people who aren't as familiar with 1Password's history.

So what you’re saying is someone had better start working on a competing password manager today.

There are several competing password managers today of course! My take is that like Dropbox (disclaimer: paying Dropbox customer until iCloud Files is just a bit better), this is a feature, not a product (unless you need team or cross platform functionality, but for teams you should probably be enterprise grade with SSO instead of sharing creds).

I'd switch from BitWarden to a native Apple solution the moment the Keychain UX reached parity with BitWarden, n=1.

As a sole user it's definitely a feature-not-product, but for teams 1Password really is a product with its extensive access controls etc.

Kinda reminds me of identity management / authentication. These also are features, right? But I feel a lot better about delegating that feature to a business whose core competency is that (eg. Okta, Google, …).

"Payment" also is a feature, but I'd never not use Stripe.

Why or why is Apple keychain so limited.

It is strictly for website address/passwords, so doesn't work for a more diverse robust security password manager.

And the sync is very flaky (when I create items within the setting application, they don't show up on my phone). And its multi steps to simply launch keychain since its not a true native app on MacOS nor iOS.

I like that keychain is limited, at least it makes me feel like there’s fewer possible vulnerabilities.

KeepassX and minikeepass on iOS are my go to for secure notes. I don’t see the need for super convenience with my credentials, I’m willing to do some work to access them.

Either way, I’m not handing over a database of login info to a SaaS company. Might make sense for large companies though.

Except it's not limited? Have you ever opened "Keychain Access" on your Mac?

No! Wow, didn’t know it had more capabilities. But I use keepassX as it’s easier to create shared databases.

I'm inferring the same conclusion. The days of 1Password as one of the best password managers will soon be over.

Like apple, firefox, google, etc...

Once the big horses are in the game, it's over. You cannot overcome the brute force of production and cash. Just look at dropbox impoding.

Another example is G Suite. They started as "Gmail with your own domain" and switched to a corporate Office suite. Now individuals that use them regret it more and more.

At least password managers are easy to switch.

Unfortunately they already started going this route recently. I have heard BitWarden is good, but I’m turned off by the thought if an Electron apo.

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