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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a little weird. I have used 1password at two jobs, and thought it was great, so I bought it for myself. They want money to sync my passwords between my Windows desktop and my iPhone. Seems reasonable to me. I program computers for a living and people pay me.

I guess there was a free self-hosted type thing at one point in the past? That was before I ever heard of the product, so I'm not that upset that it's no longer advertised heavily or whatever.

I do have one complaint. They do have k8s secret management, which I would like to use for my personal cluster, but it's just too expensive for that. Very weird to show it in the UI and then when you try to use it, quote you an insanely high price. (I just use sealed-secrets instead. If my cluster blows up, it will be a very irritating weekend rotating all the secrets. But good to do, so meh.)

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I used to use 1Password when they just sold the application at a fixed price and I handle all the synchronization between machines. That option is no longer available. I'm one of the users who left because of this.

Hmmm , I have a Mac and an iPhone and the fixed price application from circa 2015-16. They are still in sync via iCloud. I can see "Sync with Dropbox" and "Sync with WLAN server" in the settings. Did you mean any custom sync options that may have existed?

They used to offer synchronization via Dropbox. Is that still an option?

You can still sync via third party options but the entire desktop apps are view only if you don't pay for a subscription.

> They want money to sync my passwords between my Windows desktop and my iPhone. Seems reasonable to me.

Money for service is fine, but this is a long term thing, and I'm not going to pay $180 per 5 years to keep 100KB in sync. And the software doesn't justify that price either.

I like how you had to word it in terms of 5 years just to make it sound substantial...

It's 3 dollars a month.

You could be conservative with tissue paper and make up the difference to your monthly budget... so how much cheaper can you get that cheaper than tissue paper and still expect the service to be around forever.

Just 3 dollars a month… if every piece of software I use on a daily basis cost me a few dollars then the usage cost would spiral out of control.

Now many of us are software developers here on HN, so I understand the need to charge money for software. But I paid full price for 1Password6 years ago and I haven’t needed any updates to continue using it.

Now the company refuses to sell a non-subscription service version and I’m suppose to be thankful that they’re “only” charging $3 a month?

These types of subscriptions are purely highway robbery. I’d be happy to pay for upgrades if software needs to be updated to remain compatible with browser or OS updates, but let me decide whether I feel it’s necessary.

> Just 3 dollars a month… if every piece of software I use on a daily basis cost me a few dollars then the usage cost would spiral out of control.

This sounds so much pithier than it actually is, but of course every reply will say it.

Does 1Password asking for 3 dollars make every other app on your computer suddenly need 3 dollars a month?

Every piece of software needs its own plan for continued development.

Some software you use exists because people work on it for free, some exists because massive ad-tech companies defiling the globe's privacy fund it, etc.

Paid subscriptions is one of those types, and as far as paid subscriptions go 3 dollars a month is bottom of the barrel.

Like if every paid subscription you had was 3 dollars how would your bills look?

Many MANY companies have tried one time payments and died over it. People are allergic to upfront payment. People just might not have the funds to pay a fair price all at once. A tech forum isn't exactly where to get perspective on that for example...

1Password clearly tried the one time payment model, and if I had to imagine for a second, I bet you one-time payment users ended up being some of their most expensive users since they had to manage disparate sync schemes.

Now at least subscription users can subsides that cost a bit...

> Every piece of software needs its own plan for continued development.

It does. But if we're talking about just the software, I don't think updates to an already-finished password manager are worth nearly that much.

Microsoft used to sell upgrades for their entire OS for $3 a month, released once every 3 years.

> already-finished password manager

No such thing.

If it was finished they'd close their doors and find a new way to make a living.

> Microsoft used to sell upgrades for their entire OS for $3 a month, released once every 3 years.

Great way to make my point. MS tried taking just 3 dollars a month for an entire OS, but because they were asking for money upfront they had to turn to a mixture advertising Candy Crush in the start menu and privacy abuse.

> If it was finished they'd close their doors and find a new way to make a living.

Well that's the big question with these services isn't it? Are they keeping their doors open because they have more value to provide? Or is this just a ruse to keep their doors open without any further value to provide?

If that's been the question this whole time, the answer is no, this is not just a ruse.

https://app-updates.agilebits.com/product_history/OPM7

They provide a reliable service that's never let me down when I needed it, have security updates and bug fixes, provide great support, track OS and hardware updates... not much more they need to do to justify existing.

> If it was finished they'd close their doors and find a new way to make a living.

Feature-complete, then. It needs updates but it doesn't need significant development work.

> Great way to make my point. MS tried taking just 3 dollars a month for an entire OS, but because they were asking for money upfront they had to turn to a mixture advertising Candy Crush in the start menu and privacy abuse.

They make most of their money off new computers at an even lower price. Adding candy crush and more tracking came after they switched to making upgrades free, and I really doubt it's worth $100 a seat.

They made home windows into a loss-leader. If there was a choice to pay to remove those things I bet they'd make somewhat more money. But it's not where their big revenue streams are so they don't care.

Again, software development companies have tried the "rely on people being willing to pay upfront for updates" and failed repeatedly

Once you get there it doesn't matter if your goal was features or updates, you're talking about closing doors and laying people off.

So I'd much rather 1password do exactly what they did and pivot off a failing model.

> They made home windows into a loss-leader.

That's great, and I'm sure when 1Password has a 100B war chest to sit on they'll think about doing the same.

Most people would consider turning your flagship into a loss-leader for other parts of the company not exactly the goal of the average software shop.

Retail home sales hadn't been a major revenue stream for microsoft in decades, if ever.

Windows is not a loss-leader. It makes them lots of money. They just threw away a single sales channel.

> pivot off a failing model

Microsoft hasn't pivoted off upfront sales for Windows.

So now we've gone from talking about 1Password to you correcting your own points about a diversion you brought up.

I just now realized you're the same person from the other thread and it all makes sense now, this was never about 1Password for you. My mistake taking the bait.

And of course, I vehemently agree with anything you say about 1Password, or Windows.

It's not a diversion to say that a password manager shouldn't cost as much as an operating system.

And if you don't like corrections then don't nitpick so much.

> People are allergic to upfront payment.

What? People in general are clamoring and highly prefer one-time payment. Approximately nobody wants a recurring charge every month.

Companies are pushing and forcing subscriptions only because the recurring revenue stream is what investors want to see. People don't want it.

Anecdotally, if you asked me to pay $30 up-front for a password manager, I would just keep using the same minimum-effort password for every site like I was doing a few years ago. Data-wise, we know that the largest drop-off during customer acquisition is when they have to input payment information.

IME most people don’t want to pay for anything at all. Which is partly why the subscription model works — try it for free for a month so you can understand the value proposition. Afterward, you’re more willing to pay for it.

> Does 1Password asking for 3 dollars make every other app on your computer suddenly need 3 dollars a month?

By your logic there’s nothing wrong with any other app asking for their own monthly toll when you feel that 1Password is justified in doing so.

> Like if every paid subscription you had was 3 dollars how would your bills look?

But 1Password never needed to be a subscription in the first place. I am still able to use 1Password6 to this day without any updates for the past 3 years. That’s $108 for software that I paid $30 originally.

> People are allergic to upfront payment. People just might not have the funds to pay a fair price all at once.

If they were truly worried about losing customers unwilling to pay upfront they’d offer both options. By forcing everyone to go subscription they see that they could have milked me for an additional $78+ without doing any work at all.

> I bet you one-time payment users ended up being some of their most expensive users since they had to manage disparate sync schemes. Now at least subscription users can subsides that cost a bit…

I don’t see why I should feel inclined to pay more to support some edge case users. I didn’t bemoan 1Password when they didn’t provide an update after Safari changed their API. I continued using the software in Firefox and Chrome.

Am I considered an “expensive user” simply because I’m unwilling to pay their toll? I haven’t gotten any support from them for the past 3 years.

We live in a capitalistic world and 1Password is free to go with whatever pricing model works for them to maximize their revenues. Likewise, I am free to warn people the poor value that they’re receiving with the current subscription model. I don’t have to aspire to be a reoccurring revenue stream to boost their $6.8B valuation…

> if every piece of software I use on a daily basis cost me a few dollars

Can I interest you in a cloud license for ls? It’s clearly critical you your day to day work, surely $5 per month it reasonable for a too, you use so frequently???

(Im a long time 1pw user and vocal supporter. I’m now wondering how they are going to generate the expected return in this investment, because I can’t see any realistic avenues for that which aren’t likely to fuck me and everybody I’ve recommended 1pw to in the last decade or so over…)

> I like how you had to word it in terms of 5 years just to make it sound substantial...

Because I'm going to be using it for that long.

> It's 3 dollars a month.

For this single app. It's easy to justify $3 at a time, but suddenly you're paying a whole cable bill for marginal value.

Decisions like this shouldn't be taken in complete isolation and rounded to zero.

> and still expect the service to be around forever

I don't want the service, just sell me the program.

I could store my data in dropbox or microsoft or any email service or facebook.

I could store it in S3 for 1 penny a month. I could pay 2/3 as much to get 100GB of space from google.

The amount of money it takes to provide this service is completely disconnected from the cost, and the value I get is not from the service.

The program is valuable, but I could buy a nice alternative program, avoid the pure-profit service, and buy myself something nice down the line. Maybe a higher tier GPU the next time I upgrade my computer. And I can only conserve so much tissue paper.

One $3-per-month service could hold my data for thousands of apps. It's reasonable to ask me to have one such service. But I'm not paying once per app.

> Because I'm going to be using it for that long.

Cool, I'm planning to use it for a lifetime. The point is that you didn't just use the monthly number because it's extremely low as far as paid software subscriptions go...

And I don't do this:

> Decisions like this shouldn't be taken in complete isolation and rounded to zero.

So I don't end up worrying about:

> For this single app. It's easy to justify $3 at a time, but suddenly you're paying a whole cable bill for marginal value.

> I don't want the service, just sell me the program.

First off you literally just said:

> Money for service is fine, but this is a long term thing, and I'm not going to pay $180 per 5 years to keep 100KB in sync.

So clearly you want the service but feel it's too expensive...

But secondly, software doesn't exist in a time bubble! Security updates, maintenance and support all exist and these are people trying to make a living while handling all that.

It's super cool that you want to get their hard work in the most personally beneficial way, but they have this very reasonably priced service that lets the people have the software, and them have their livelihood.

You can say "oh well I don't care about maintenance, I'll buy the new version if it's compatible with my OS", which again is super convenient for you... but once they hit plateaus in new users are they just supposed to pause development until old versions break?

If the utility of the program was so low you wouldn't be asking them for it without the service after all... if it's "just storing 100kb of text" there's plenty of other options out there.

10 cents a day for something that saves a lot of stress is a great price.

> So clearly you want the service but feel it's too expensive...

No, I don't. "Money for service" is fine as a principle. This particular service is something I don't want at all. Those can both be true at the same time.

> But secondly, software doesn't exist in a time bubble! Security updates, maintenance and support all exist and these are people trying to make a living while handling all that.

I'm happy to pay for software updates. But software is supposed to last more than 10-16 months. Which is how often you'd be paying a reasonable shelf price of 30-50 dollars. Generally software can be expected to last ten years without trouble.

> very reasonably priced service

What's your definition of reasonable here? $20 a month is a great deal if that's the price of security! So $20 a month would be reasonable by that metric. But I think we can both agree that's too high. So how do we decide? And it can't just be that low dollar amounts are automatically reasonable, because we're not rounding to zero.

> If the utility of the program was so low you wouldn't be asking them for it without the service after all... if it's "just storing 100kb of text" there's plenty of other options out there.

I'd say the utility of the program is worth a solid $30-50. The program does all the good stuff. The program isn't the service. The program manages my passwords, the service just syncs a tiny file.

I can get the same syncing UX in most password managers just by logging into an existing account I already have. The stress of that one-time login is nothing. It's less stress than making a new account for 1password.

> No, I don't. "Money for service" is fine as a principle

My mistake for assuming you were talking about the thing being talked about

> What's your definition of reasonable here? $20 a month is a great deal if that's the price of security! So $20 a month would be reasonable by that metric. But I think we can both agree that's too high. So how do we decide? And it can't just be that low dollar amounts are automatically reasonable, because we're not rounding to zero.

This entire paragraph is just asking me how to price software, which is already a very well covered topic and there's no answer that will fit in this comment (there's also no one person who knows a definitive answer to it).

I mean part of why $3 is reasonable compared to $20 is less sticker shock... why is there less sticker shock for $3 but there is for $20? Why $9.99 instead of $10?

> I'm happy to pay for software updates. But software is supposed to last more than 10-16 months. Which is how often you'd be paying a reasonable shelf price of 30-50 dollars. Generally software can be expected to last ten years without trouble.

This still boils down to "what I want" while ignoring the reality the creators face.

Like, software companies have gone with your reality, and before 10 years passes up and you feel like it's time to upgrade... they're gone!

What you don't seem to understand is that the sustainability of the company has a premium here.

It's not just $3 for passwords, it's $3 so I have confidence I'm not relying on 1password having indefinite growth to have people work there.

> My mistake for assuming you were talking about the thing being talked about

I said buying it is "fine". Even if that was directed specifically to this service, that doesn't mean I want it.

> there's also no one person who knows a definitive answer

Then don't be so insistent that the price is good.

> Like, software companies have gone with your reality, and before 10 years passes up and you feel like it's time to upgrade... they're gone!

I'm not saying they have to do it that way, I just think it's a reasonable way to calculate the price of the functionality.

If they want a steadier income that's fine, but wanting a full retail paycheck every single year is going too far.

> It's not just $3 for passwords, it's $3 so I have confidence I'm not relying on 1password having indefinite growth to have people work there.

On the other hand, worrying about whether companies will be around for the long term is a big reason I dislike subscriptions.

That $3 doesn't guarantee they'll still be around. And for a simple product like this, the more ambitious they get the more worried I get.

Also this company is an order of magnitude or two bigger than "sustainable". The only way they would stop selling a password manager is because of bad management or because they choose to pivot into a different market. They're not going to have insufficient money to pay the staff of their core product.

You've thrown any sort of internal consistency so far out the window at this point, I don't think you even know what you're saying anymore.

You start by implying there's something wrong with insisting on the quality of a price then...

> If they want a steadier income that's fine, but wanting a full retail paycheck every single year is going too far.

Right. So you're now you're not just saying that the subscription model is bad, you're saying that you've decided what a full retail paycheck for their software is.

You say: > That $3 doesn't guarantee they'll still be around > for a simple product like this, the more ambitious they get the more worried I get. > Also this company is an order of magnitude or two bigger than "sustainable"

Yet it's all exactly the reason why this is true:

> They're not going to have insufficient money to pay the staff of their core product.

I mean how do you think 1Password reached the size where you're essentially calling them "too big to fail"?

They did the ramen noodle "sustainable" thing, and they'd be a footnote if they had stayed there. Instead they were ambitious, they scaled, they took people's money in a way that works for them, and now some internet person is simultaneously saying "They're so successful they'll never fail if they don't want to" and "Why are they doing what they did to reach that point???"

> Right. So you're now you're not just saying that the subscription model is bad, you're saying that you've decided what a full retail paycheck for their software is.

Did you forget that they used to sell it that way? And there are competitors with similar prices. We know what retail price is.

> "Why are they doing what they did to reach that point???"

I never asked that.

They raised their prices so they'd make more money, obviously.

When I say it's too expensive for me, that's not me being confused about why they charge that much.

I'd rather pay for a product plus some profits plus some scaling, and not pay for a product plus some profits plus extremely aggressive scaling.

They can both keep a company around for a long time, and the former might even be better for that.

Like you said a couple comments up, I want "confidence I'm not relying on 1password having indefinite growth to have people work there". The more they focus on very fast growth, the less I have of that confidence.

> I mean how do you think 1Password reached the size where you're essentially calling them "too big to fail"?

They reached a safe size before they switched to forcing subscriptions.

Take a look at BitWarden. It is very popular, has a good free tier, the premium plan is $10/year, and the family plan for six users is $3.33/month.

Not free that I was ever aware – it was a fixed-price app when I first got it – but you could store your vault on any network drive, and later Dropbox became the way to sync between mobile & desktop. But it was a bit tricky to set up with the extra auth & auth hassle and "now where did I put my vault?" issues. As much as I liked that approach, it's hard to deny the current cloud-based service is easier to get going with.

> Very weird to show it in the UI a

I thought this is a common pattern for assessing user interest. If you don't display it users don't know it is available.

Very common in A/B testing to show different variations of CTAs as well.

"Very weird to show it in the UI and then when you try to use it, quote you an insanely high price."

How much did they quote? (if you're able to share)

Oh, it's on their website. It's $30/month for "25 vault access credits". I have no idea what consumes a vault access credit, but didn't want to pay $30/month for a personal project.

(At my last job, I wrote something to rotate the passwords on our network equipment everyday. I just exec'd the 1password linux binary, and that was free. Why should I pay to integrate it with k8s?)

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