1Password Embraces No Passwords As I Consider No 1Password
Jess Weatherbed, writing for The Verge:
1Password customers are finally gaining access to the passwordless future we’ve been promised. Starting from June 6th this year, anyone with a 1Password account will be able to save and manage their passkeys— a biometric-based login technology that allows users to ditch passwords in favor of their device’s own authentication.
“Finally” seems a bit harsh seeing as the commitment to passkeys by the major tech platforms was only made a year ago, and widespread rollout for the public to use them started just last fall.
But their announcement comes at a time when I’m reconsidering my 1Password loyalty. The only things keeping me there are (1) a pretty great discount I scored a couple of years ago (but will be running out soon enough), and (2) effortless password sharing with my family. And things like their “telemetry system” announcement that reeks of growth-hacky metric chasing actively push me away.1
I’ve got my fingers crossed that WWDC will bring some iCloud Keychain enhancements regarding the latter (i.e. iCloud Family Sharing for Keychain). And since sharing would likely be free or rolled into iCloud+, the former would become a non-issue. Having my chosen platform, rather than a third-party app, handle creating/storing/auto-filling my credentials is ever more appealing.2
I’ll concede that I appreciate that 1Password made the announcement at all and that they announced it while still beta-testing the feature only on employee accounts. But it still feels icky, and I’m sure is a direct result of their newish venture capital-influenced direction.↩︎
On the other hand, I’m all for 1Password making it easy for other third parties to implement passkeys alongside, or instead of, their current authentication systems. And that’s what they’re doing with Passage.↩︎