1Password unethical marketing

I jus received an email from the “founder” of 1Password, David Teare, selling me on 1Password 8, as if it was the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel. Marketing is marketing, and I get it, but they should perhaps mention the fact that it no longer will a native Mac app. This is debatable I would also agree.

What is clearly unethical on his/their behalf, is that the switch to a paid subscription model and the fact that my Dropbox syncing which has served me so well for a decade, will no longer be an option. This is too much even from them.

I will not upgrade myself and will stay on 1P 7 for as long as I can, and then will search for other options. For purely personal use and being semi-retired it is simply not worth it. I have purchased all their previous updates and would most probably have kept doing so, but not like this, no.

4 Likes

While I do share quite some of the sentiment against Electron and lack of local vaults, it might be too much asking them to send emails saying “Please upgrade to our new version which you will totally hate because we don’t respect macOS as a platform anymore” instead of… well, marketing in my humble opinion… :slight_smile:

Check out the other thread, some interesting alternatives were mentioned there, some of which actually look a bit like “1Password back in the good old days”. :+1:

6 Likes

As anyone who has read any of my posts will know, I am no fan of subscriptions. That said, I don’t see how moving to a subscription model is unethical. Could you elaborate a bit on the ethics that are being violated? And, the source of the ethical premise upon which you are basing your ethical judgment? I’m not arguing with you :slightly_smiling_face: but I am curious as to what specific ethical principle is being violated by a different business model and design choice for an app.

I will add that ethics aside, the email was cheesy and filled with hyperbole. For example, “1Password for Safari is here for iOS 15, and it’s life-changing.” :roll_eyes:

14 Likes

Claiming 1Password (the company) is behaving unethically is a bit over the top, perhaps trollish. If they sent me an email claiming “aha! we have your data and we want a ransom”, then, yeah, maybe that’s unethical. But putting a product into the market that maybe I don’t like is not unethical. I’d suggest the headline on this thread needs to be reconsidered.

20 Likes

@SMC, are you able to share an image of, or the text of, the email here? I don’t seem to have received it on my accounts.

Ethics is not about changing a business model. Nor is it about not giving certain information in a marketing promo. Ethics is about changing the business model and hiding the fact so that a potential user is purposely denied the information needed to make an informed decision.

You might consider to change the heading to frustrating marketing rather than unethical marketing lest you be called more strongly for libel.


JJW

6 Likes

I have to agree with the OP. Electron is fair play. Only geeks are interested in that. Most users don’t even know the difference between an app and a website. But if they swept the subscription-only model under the carpet, trying to bait users out of their local vaults and Dropbox sync unknowingly, that is a scum move.

Frankly, they are fully aware they are selling snake oil, or they would not be trying so hard (or need to try at all) to market it. It does help them that they’ve built a very strong jumping off point before cheapifying and selling out. But that doesn’t work out for everyone. Some brands go the way of Sears.

So it doesn’t store and keep your passwords safe anymore? Blast.

5 Likes

Frankly, they are fully aware they are selling snake oil (insofar as their upcoming changes being an upgrade). Does this really need to be spelled out?

I’m assuming it’s this one. En toto:

Hello everyone,

I hope your summer was as lovely and safe as mine was.:pray:

As excited as I am to give you an update on my tomato competition with my neighbour, I saved it for a postscript as we have a lot to cover today. From iOS 15 to iPad to the all-new 1Password 8 for Mac, it’s been an exciting summer!

Let’s see what our team has been up to.

1Password for Safari on iPhone :tada:

258x94

Every once in a while a new technology comes along that changes everything. And iOS 15 is one of them. With it we’ve been able to create the best 1Password experience we’ve ever had on iPhone.

It’s hard to believe how amazing this is without seeing it in action so start with our 1Password for iOS 15 announcement video and come back here after adding your like and hitting that notification bell. :kissing_heart:

While browsing in Safari you can now open 1Password to view your saved items for the current page and fill your username, passwords, and one-time passwords.

Icon_iPhone.png608x250

Access everything you need without ever needing to leave Safari. Search, create Smart Passwords, change passwords, save new logins, you name it. It’s a complete game changer.

1Password for Safari is here for iOS 15, and it’s life-changing

And it’s a bit hard to tell from the screenshots here but these images are sporting the new iPhone 13 Pro in the gorgeous Blue Sierra. I ordered mine as soon as preorders opened up and am loving the new camera. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

1Password for Safari on iPad :tada:

258x93

As thrilled as I am about 1Password on iPhone, the iPad experience is simply stunning. That gorgeous sheet of glass enabled us to bring over the full experience you’ve been using on your Desktop.

Icon_iPad.png608x250

Having the full desktop experience on my iPad makes my heart sing and has completely changed how I browse the web. See our combined iPad + iPhone announcement post for more details:

Introducing 1Password for Safari on iPadOS 15

I’ve dreamed of this since my very first iPad and I’m absolutely thrilled with the possibilities iPadOS 15 makes possible. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

1Password 8 for Mac early access

258x94

It’s hard to top the iPhone and iPad news as those releases are absolutely incredible, but our Mac team is on track to do exactly that.

Yes, it’s time to talk about 1Password 8 for Mac! :tada:

We’re not done yet but we are inviting those adventurous folks among you to join our early access. Think of it as an early beta where you’ll be able to help us through the testing process as we get ready for the final release. Here’s how things look today:

Icon-1Password-Macbook.png608x250

I absolutely love our new design language here and the user experience is the best we’ve ever had. To get here we went back to the drawing board and reimagined everything 1Password could be on Mac, and in the process completely recreated every bit and every pixel.

Learn all about 1Password 8 for Mac and how to join the early access in our announcement:

1Password 8 for Mac is now in Early Access!

Speaking of Mac, as much as I love my MacBook Pro 16”, I’m dying to get my hands on the Apple Silicon version. I’m super hopeful that Apple will announce their October event soon and amaze us with some stunning new Macs. :crossed_fingers:

That’s all I can fit into this newsletter so it’s time to bid you farewell. Take care and if you need anything please don’t hesitate to reach out in our 1Password support community or reply to this email.

Take care,
Dave Teare - 1Password Founder 13x136

426x200

P.S. For those dying to know how my tomato plants turned out you’ll be happy to know I had a record year! This tweet shows less than half of my harvest. :exploding_head:

And while I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, I was pleased as punch as I handily beat my neighbour and won our competition hands down! :trophy:

I won by such a wide margin that he’s decided to focus his efforts on growing apples now and exiting the tomato business. :joy:

ForumsBlogTwitterFacebook

You received this email because you subscribed to emails from 1Password about product updates and new features. You can easily [link redacted] at any time.

© AgileBits all rights reserved. AgileBits is a privately held company incorporated in Ontario Canada. 4711 Yonge St., 10th Floor • Toronto • Ontario • M2N 6K8 • Canada.

1 Like

For what its worth, really want to know if his Tomatoes are encrypted and stored in 1Password 8

4 Likes

This is, pure and simple, a marketing email. If it doesn’t tell any lies there is no ethics violation.

While I’m no fan of the change to an electron app on MacOS, if the functionality isn’t downgraded, then it’s a like for like upgrade.

What you don’t know @SMC is the percentage of Agile’s users who are already on subscriptions, if this is 98% and Agile know this, it’s reasonable to suggest that they wouldn’t reference the 2% of people who would be affected by the change.

I also suspect that if someone upgraded and didn’t like the change. Agile would happily give that subscriber their money back, because under it all, they’ve always been a decent company.

I think that your title is misleading to say the least and your response is on the strong side.

8 Likes

The tomatoes are encrypted, but poorly. They didn’t use salt.

Anyway, it looks like they’re still only promoting early access. I can’t call it truly snaky until they’re asking people to unknowingly jump the local vault ship en masse. Might have been worse still I suppose. They could changed it without early announcement and affording the people who won’t drink the Kool-Aid a long period to find something else.

5 Likes

This is way, way more hilarious to me than it has any right to be. :slight_smile:

I’ve heard from the 1PW people that the vast, vast majority of their users are on the subscription model. I agree that it sucks they’ve abandoned the local vaults, and I’m not happy about it - but it seems that local vault users have been becoming a rather small minority for a number of years now.

1 Like

Got the email. Skimmed it. I’ve had enough time to reject their new offering and have already moved on. I did avail myself of the Unsubscribe button which they thoughtfully included.

@webwalrus No doubt about it with their enterprise subscriptions from large scale companies. It’s no wonder if their individual subscriptions are larger than 2% of their enterprise subscriptions.

1 Like

@Bmosbacker’s take is dead on.

The email is a marketing email, and it’s called “puffing”, selling up your merchandise. Happens all the time, every day. We see a lot of this from car dealers, millennials, Gen-Xers, salespeople at Best Buy, and others who are in sales or who missed English class in grammar school. My product is the greatest thing since sliced beer! :beer: Whatever, no ethical violations or issues as far as I can tell.

Don’t worry, when you get as old as @Bmosbacker @MacSparky, and me, you will eventually be able to see through the BS, ignore the opinion of critics on the internet, and take an objective look at the product yourself and see if it meets your needs.

6 Likes

Most 1Password users don’t bother to care if the application is truly “native” or not. As long as it works, right?

6 Likes

As a slightly tongue in cheek off-topic observation, after reading Dave’s email, I’d say he’s taking lessons directly from Tim in how to promote a product! :wink:

Even if they did care, the number of other options available to the average user that are anywhere near as good seems to be rather small. Especially for anybody that wants to share vaults with their spouse / kids.

1 Like