Dropbox turned into a problem when they limited the number of devices that could connect on their free tier. So with my next new machine, I switched to iCloud.
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Ultimately, this is what the decision boils down to. Important points to consider:
- Is there an alternative to a subscription and what does it cost?
- What (if any) additional features come with a subscription
- What happens to the app (and my data) should I choose to cancel the subscription.
No specific set of answers automatically translates to “yes” or “no”, but they are important things to know as a part of making your own personal decision.
For my personal example, this is why I subscribe to Microsoft 365 for my office apps. There is a standalone license option, but for my situation (four computers and two users), it costs significantly more. The subscription comes with additional features (OneDrive cloud storage, new features not available to standalone license users, automatic upgrades without additional costs). And if I choose to cancel my subscription, all of my documents remain available (the apps will let me load, view and print, but not create, edit or save).
In contrast, Adobe’s products (the various Creative Cloud apps) do not offer a non-subscription option for any price and if you stop paying, the software doesn’t run at all - so you lose all access to your documents.
For me, Microsoft’s terms are acceptable and Adobe’s are not. Others will come to other conclusions based on the exact same facts.
But this depends on your usage pattern. If I remember correctly, using DropBox (or some other generic file-sync mechanism) does not provide a locking mechanism to do the right thing, should two computers try to update the database at the same time.
If you only use one computer at a time, this shouldn’t be a problem - the one you’re using will update the file and it will sync to the other computers. But if you have open browsers running on two computers at once, there’s a risk that the two may step on each other, resulting in the possibility of data loss or corruption.
On the other hand, a synchronization system specially designed for this database (e.g. that syncs data on a per-record basis instead of the entire file, with a conflict-resolution algorithm for when two computers try to update the same record) should be able to support any number of computers and browsers accessing the database at once, both for reading and writing.
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Completely agree about MS 365 Subscription, but just to clarify about Adobe. Lightroom Cloudy and Classic is where you might lose access to documents and Adobe says this:
Adobe will continue to store your original images for one year after your membership lapses. During that time, you can continue to launch Lightroom to download your original files from our cloud services.
If your subscription expires, you can continue to use Lightroom Classic excluding the Develop module, Map module and mobile sync. … And if you later decide you want to subscribe again, then the main Develop module, Map module and mobile sync are unlocked and you can again use Lightroom Classic to the full.
Subscriptions work for me for some things. Each has to be assessed on its own merits.
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As I understand it, Photoshop stops working altogether if you let your subscription lapse. And I don’t think any third-party apps capable of editing PSD files support all of the features that might be used in the file - so you may be locked out of your documents if you don’t limit yourself to the oldest application features.
But this opinion is based on reading comments from others. For myself, I use Photoshop Elements, which is not subscription based.
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You may be right about no third party apps which support ALL the Photoshop features but you can open .psd and export to another format with the built-in Preview app, or Graphic Converter to mention two. I don’t think Adobe are quite as bad “losing all access to your documents” 
Yeah…that was a bummer but it works so well that I just sprung for the 2TB account…it’s a subscription but worth it in my view. I also have iCloud 200GB for the family since my wife is terrible at backing up her iPhone and laptop. I solved the latter by setting up automatic CCC jobs to our home entertainment 2013 mini and my 2019 photo processing iMac/file server…but for her iPhone and iPad the 2.99 a month is also worth it.
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In contrast, Adobe’s products (the various Creative Cloud apps) do not offer a non-subscription option for any price and if you stop paying, the software doesn’t run at all - so you lose all access to your documents.
Actually…I’m pretty sure you can export both originals and as modified outputs as jpegs or tiffs or whatever from Lightroom, at least for the CC version…and I gladly pay for that subscription since it includes Photoshop and software updates as the product matures. Like your paying for Office subscription…different things make different sense to different folks. I gave up on Office when the last version we owned broke the no 32 bit software barrier and shifted over to Pages and Numbers. For retired folk…along with whatever Libre/Open/Neo/Whatever office package my wife’s laptop ended up with for exporting Pages document to MS Works or whatever several of the folks in her Ladies of Elks group still use…Pages and Numbers work just fine. It took awhile to get the hang of how Numbers works since it is pretty different than the way Excel works…and the loss of pivot tables which we never used wasn’t a big deal.
But this depends on your usage pattern. If I remember correctly, using DropBox (or some other generic file-sync mechanism) does not provide a locking mechanism to do the right thing, should two computers try to update the database at the same time.
If you only use one computer at a time, this shouldn’t be a problem - the one you’re using will update the file and it will sync to the other computers. But if you have open browsers running on two computers at once, there’s a risk that the two may step on each other, resulting in the possibility of data loss or corruption.
Also true…but I’ve never really worried about it with 1PW v7 and never had any problems with using its for sync since v3 or v4 when DropBox became a supported platform. I don’t really have an issue with paying the subscription fee or 1PW either…I actually do pay for one even though my primary vaults are on DropBox because I wanted a specific vault that is shared with our son/executor so that he could easily get enough device, password manager, DropBox, and other base information to get to the rest of of our information. It’s the lack of…so far…any ability to do my own non 1PW the company backup and restore that will stop me from upgrading to v8…I don’t like the no local vaults or the non native macOS client but I can live with both of those…unless I give up and move to Enpass.
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Very easily: Local WiFi between my iMac and my iDevices. That way I don’t lose control of my sensitive data to a proprietary system.
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Yes…but with any of the options it’s a manual operation and typically requires a couple of steps…and doesn’t always properly consolidate changes made on all devices into the single master file stored on all of them whereas at least on 1PW using DropBox solves that last problem.
The biggest drawback is the manual operation…we all know that automatically happening things…like password file sync and the automatic daily backup on the Mac…are generally better as they just happen without user intervention…just like Time Machine just happens without user intervention.
That isn’t saying manual is bad…just that automatic is simpler. And the cloud version of the file is protected by either your Master Password…or by the Master Password and Secret Key in the case of 1PW subscription accounts. Nobody’s going to really be able to steal and crack a 1PW vault from DropBox even if DropBox gets compromised because the file there is encrypted.
The drawback…from a security standpoint…with the subscription plan is that the file may be vulnerable if the 1PW server gets compromised…I’ve not seen any detailed analysis of where things get decrypted there as opposed to v7 and earlier where it’s only decrypted on your device. If you log into the web 1PW subscription portal…is it decrypted on the server or on device…I dunno but if the former that’s a serious security problem. And in addition…it’s not clear whether the Secret Key and Master Password are passed to the 1PW server…if they are then compromise of that server could conceivably provide access to the data inside the file. Hence my personal preference for stand alone vaults since I know that DropBox only has an encrypted copy of the file and even without their supposedly super-duper Secret Key which makes it harder…although really it’s just a second very long password that gets worked into the encryption/decryption process somehow…a 20something character Master with the 4 basic password food groups included is plenty secure.
Personally…I’m just fine with a copy of my encrypted sensitive data to a proprietary system like DropBox as long as I can make my own local copy that can always be used in an emergency.
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True, it is extremely onerous to launch the 1Password app on my iPhone and/or my iPad Mini (if it wasn’t launched already). 
Really that is all there is to it. I don’t have to tap anything to start the sync. Of course I can still start a sync manually if I wish. The BEST part is my sensitive data is not up on a proprietary server somewhere just waiting to be harvested by hackers, everything is kept local.
(1) If you think you’re better at protecting data on your own computer than professionals are at protecting data on a server, you’re probably wrong. Although it is true that your computer is less likely to be directly targeted.
(2) More importantly, what protects your data is the encryption, not the server or computer security where the encrypted file is stored. If the file is encrypted, it should make no difference whether it’s stored on an inaccessible drive somewhere or if it’s posted to the web for anyone to view.
Dave
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Perhaps they’ve made the self hosted sync easier…I haven’t tried it in a bunch of versions. It’s still more difficult than “it just works” if you are using DropBox sync IMO…and from a security standpoint the DB copy is fully encrypted and the 2 or 3 (or 4 in my case) clients sync all the changes between themselves. No matter though…if you orI go to v8 we’ll be relying on 1PWs servers to do all the syncing with no real local backup/retore capability. Perhaps they self sync version works almost as well as DropBox’s…but I’ve never tried it as back when DB was first supported the no cloud sync capability was either non existent or hard to implement…and since DB worked I never really looked at it again.
When reading…I thought originally you were being a bit snippy…but then saw the smiley on the end…so no worries.
Yep…and that’s true with DropBox…and presumably with v8 and the subscription blob that keeps it encrypted on the server end although exactly how changes from multiple devices get properly synced between the master server copy and the local copies on each device hasn’t really been explained by them.
Looking at the contents of the backup files or the vault on DropBox…there’s a whole fewer items in either than in the actual vault when seen unencrypted in 1PW app…but since I’ve never had an issue with entries not syncing or consolidating properly they’ve obviously solved that issue. It would be nice to know if the master copy out on their server is unencrypted on the server which means it’s potentially vulnerable although they’ve assuredly taken best practices to keep that from happening or if there’s some magic happening that makes it all work without ever being decrypted on their end.
They…deliberately I think…don’t really talk about how the guts of the encryption/sync/consolidation works because (a) most users aren’t technically knowledgeable enough to make sense of it, (b) protection against hackers…although security by obscurity isn’t generally a good idea so again I’m pretty sure they’ve had enough smart outside the company people look at it under NDA to make sure there were no oopsies, and (c) how they do it is proprietary data to a large extent.
That’s been my experience with WiFi syncing with 1Password 7 (and previous versions of 1Password) for the last 7 years: have 1Password running on the Mac, and launch 1Password on an iOS device. They sync up automatically.
There’s an initial 1-time setup sequence of instructions, but that’s about it.
That said, it’s been pretty clear to me from spending time in the AgileBits forums that WiFi syncing is not encouraged for the last several years. They really want you to use 1Password’s cloud synching instead. I’ve often wondered whether this is because it takes an inordinate amount of customer support time.
Of course. More money for them.
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It’s because they want you to sign up for the subscription…which is why the capability for wifi sync isn’t in v8.
My wife uses Lightroom but stores and saves all her work to an SSD locally. Is it the case that although the original files are saved on the SSD, all of the modifications of those files are only saved as instructions in Lightroom; which is why letting the subscription lapse is ruinous?
BlockquoteMy wife uses Lightroom but stores and saves all her work to an SSD locally. Is it the case that although the original files are saved on the SSD, all of the modifications of those files are only saved as instructions in Lightroom; which is why letting the subscription lapse is ruinous?
This thread has got too long! There were some posts about this earlier and it is not ruinous. This is what Adobe says about the two Lightooms:
Adobe will continue to store your original images for one year after your membership lapses. During that time, you can continue to launch Lightroom to download your original files from our cloud services.
If your subscription expires, you can continue to use Lightroom Classic excluding the Develop module, Map module and mobile sync. … And if you later decide you want to subscribe again, then the main Develop module, Map module and mobile sync are unlocked and you can again use Lightroom Classic to the full.
So if your wife is using Classic she will never lose her edits, but if she lets her subscription lapse she won’t be able to do any more edits.
Thanks!
p.
As an alternative, does anyone have any experience with “Secrets” password manager?
iCloud sync. MacOS/iOS only. $19.99 one-time purchase. 4.7 rating with 228 reviews on the App Store. I’m not against subscriptions per se just careful with my money and looking for value.