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Ask HN: 1Password is backing out of the lifetime license I bought. Can I sue?

59 points by jononomo ↗ HN
I bought a "lifetime" 1Password license over a decade ago before they switched to a monthly-fee model. Now I'm getting a notice that I must upgrade to a monthly-fee-based model to continue using 1Password (see https://support.1password.com/upgrade-mac/). What the heck? Can I sue?

49 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 99.2 ms ] thread
bombcar
Did they disable iPassword 7?

I suspect they're just not going to update the in-browser apps and you can keep using iPassword 7 basically uselessly.

Lifetime licenses are worth about nothing.

CaliforniaKarl
“iPassword”?
bombcar
1password, weird that I typo'd an i.
quickthrower2
iCloud Keychain is an alternative though!
bombcar
To be honest I've thought about it a number of times, and I'm noticing that it's getting better and better each year; at some point it will pass 1P for me (since I'm such an Apple addict) that I'll probably switch over.
guiambros
Where does it say that you have to migrate to v8? There's nothing on that page that says you can't continue using your old "lifetime" license for, well, a lifetime.

On the other hand, if you want to upgrade, I think it's reasonable to expect that you only get the new updated version if you pay whatever they decide to charge for. You, of course, are entitled to vote with your wallet if you don't think the price is fair.

Am I missing anything?

ps: no relationship with AgileBits, other than being a customer since the days of "lifetime" licenses, and now a happy subscriber of their family plan.

Larrikin
They're killing the extension on all browsers because Chrome is planning to stop supporting it. I keep getting warnings in Firefox to upgrade
snowe2010
I haven’t received a single notification about that. Do you have a source?
BOOSTERHIDROGEN
There is a blog posts about this situation everyone on v7 can continue to use, cmiiw
Aaron2222
Firefox will stop supporting Manifest V2 at some point in the future as well (just a lot later than Chrome). I presume the extension will continue to work past the end of support date if it's already installed and your browser still supports Manifest V2?
dallas
This happened to me with SplashID in 2016. I just dropped them. IANAL but I bet the license didn't contain the term "irrevocable". Interesting if it does!
obpe
I had a similar situation once but it turned out I didn't read the fine print because even though I had a "lifetime" membership, the company could revoke it at any time for any reason.

One of those life lessons you can really only learn the hard way.

jryb
But I just learned it the easy way :)
JohnFen
This is why I consider "lifetime" to be the same as "natural" on food packaging: it is entirely without meaning.
Spooky23
You have a perpetual right to use the product you bought. You don’t have a right to upgrades in perpetuity.
dumbotron
People like to criticize subscription models, but this is why you actually want them. It's easier to keep everything mostly up-to-date than do a big migration every decade, and if the pricing is set right (it usually isn't), it works out to the same amount in the end.
JohnFen
This is why we should have options. I would rather do the occasional migration than have software I rely on constantly changing. Even worse is when that software auto-updates and I can't even decide when the change will happen.

Your point is valid as well. There's no reason both of our preferences shouldn't be accommodated.

rchaud
People criticize "Subscribe or nothing" models.

Sketch (the prototyping app) did the right thing and offered both. One-time fee for lifetime use with 1 year of upgrades, with an annual payment option for continuous updates. I bought a license in 2019, have never needed to upgrade.

Aaron2222
Was it sold as a "lifetime" licence with free upgraded to future versions? I suspect not. A perpetual licence to 1Password 7 is just that, a perpetual licence to that version of 1Password. 1Password 7 will still work, and the only reason the extension will stop working is due to Chrome dropping support for Manifest V2. Would you be complaining if the desktop application stopped working due to updates to your OS?
mirkodrummer
C’mon man, you can’t be serious. A password manager without a browser extension is a useless password manager. And please note that 1Password7 extension will stop working, not the newer version…
Aaron2222
That's because the 1Password Classic extension is tied to the 1Password 7 desktop app, whereas the new 1Password X extension is more standalone (and only supports cloud vaults). Because 1Password 8 also only supports cloud vaults, there wouldn't have been any reason to support the 1Password Classic extension on 1Password 8, hence support for that is similar to support for 1Password 7 (i.e. they won't be moving to Manifest V3 for it, as it's not the current version anymore).

Would it have been nice for 1Password 8 to support local vaults, or 1Password X to support accessing local vaults from 1Password 7? Yes, but they're hardly under any obligation to do so. The simple fact is 1Password 7 is an older version, so isn't getting major updates. As 1Password Classic is only for 1Password 7, neither does it. It's an older version, not fully supported anymore, so it's not going to get a port to Manifest V3. Admittedly, I have no idea how much work that would even be, but it's hardly something that is expected for an old version.

I doubt there would be as much fuss over this if 1Password 8 supported local vaults and had a perpetual licence. This is just the normal case of old versions of things no longer working on newer software. The fact that 1Password dropped support for local vaults in newer versions is beside the point, and another thing entirely.

pimlottc
That is a bummer, but have you tried contacting them to resolve this amicably before you resort to a lawsuit?
deafpolygon
No, you can't.

The lifetime license usually applies to the version you bought - not anything else.

Then there's this get-out-of-jail free card:

> AgileBits Inc. makes no guarantees, representations or warranties of any kind as regards the website and associated technology. Any purportedly applicable warranties, terms and conditions are excluded, to the fullest extent permitted by law. Your use of the Service is at your sole risk.

And you can't sue:

> All disputes and questions whatsoever which shall arise between AgileBits Inc. and you in connection with this Service Agreement, or the construction or application thereof or any provision contained in this Service Agreement or as to any act, deed or omission of any party or as to any other matter in any way relating to this Service Agreement, shall be resolved by arbitration. Such arbitration shall be conducted by a single arbitrator.

raverbashing
Of course you can sue. Don't take legal advice from the opposing part.

Also of course it might not be accepted given that term but that's for the courts to decide.

turygo
Imagine that you purchased a Windows XP license more than a decade ago, which was, of course, considered "lifetime." Now, with the release of Windows 11, you understandably cannot use your Windows XP license for it.
rchaud
Yes, but you can still install Windows XP using that license key on pretty much any Intel/AMD machine.
m-p-3
As long as it isn't too recent, considering how difficult it might be to find the drivers that works for WinXP/32-bit.
AHOHA
Is there a definition of a “lifetime” for electronic use, legally I mean? Maybe it’s just 5 years.
throwaway019254
I can't say if you are joking or not here.
usgroup
In the UK -- to my understanding -- the "lifetime" of a standard contract is 5 years unless it is a deed. If it is the contract that binds parties then I would deduce that no "lifetime" can exceed the life-time of the contract in so far as it generates an obligation.

Hence, I'm not sure OP is joking. It could just be an astute question.

paulcole
Of course you can sue. I can’t imagine spending tens of thousands of dollars on this license and then losing it after just over 10 years.
beojan
Was it really tens of thousands? Looks like 1password 7 standalone was $50, not sure what it used to be when the standalone license was the only option.
paulcole
Oh, I was thinking this guy wouldn't make a federal case out of $50 that he got 10+ years of value out of lol.
JohnFen
I think a small-claims case would be more appropriate. No need to put down large amounts of money to do that.
paulcole
No, I meant that I thought this guy must've paid 10s of thousands for this license that he can no longer use. Because why would he be thinking about suing anyone unless he really feels aggrieved over the amount of money plus 10 years+ of use he got.
JohnFen
Ah, I see. I thought that he was upset because of the principle of the thing, not because he didn't feel that he got value.

It sounds to me like he's saying "a promise is a promise". And he's not wrong on that narrow point. I think that perhaps he took the promise as being more broad than it really was, though -- and any promise of "lifetime" anything will inevitably be broken anyway.

yayr
Alternatively, you can consider switching to a keepass compatible app. To be completely independent you could save your key file encrypted on a cloud folder (e.g. icloud, onedrive,...) and use any of the available keepass compatible clients on your devices while still having everything in sync.
josephd79
This is why I never buy lifetime option. Shady marketing tactic in my opinion. Companies just change versions and force you to pay again.
yrro
Remember when they said Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows?
seanw444
In fairness, 11 is pretty much a repainted 10 with some tweaks under the hood. It doesn't seem worthy of a whole new major version imo.
warrenm
they did move and reshape the taskbar!
josephd79
Did they use "Lifetime" in their marketing? I'm on a MAC and only use windows in a VM environment.
muzani
"You bought a lifetime subscription to 1Password, but this is 2Password."
ameyv
Raise the issue on twitter. At least try to get good deal out of it like 10 years or so, if they are not going to honor their commitment.
warrenm
"can" you sue?

Sure

You can do lots of things

Does it make any kind of financial sense to sue?

I seriously doubt it

mirkodrummer
IMO you either upgrade to 1password 8 or migrate your vault to another password manager. I stopped using 1pwd7 as soon as I set up my new Mac, to my surprise I discovered I couldn’t install the classic Firefox extension anymore, even though manifest v3 was delayed on Chrome and Firefox would likely follow the deprecation of v2 much later. I can’t disagree more with other comments, the OP doesn’t want to upgrade, he wants to keep using the classic extension that is now unavailable. I migrated to Bitwarden
adamdennis
Honest question… could someone make an alternative 1pw7 extension themselves?