This is an incredible overraction over a minor change that did not even happen. You can still find "Always free" in the pricing line of the very same page everyone keeps linking as proof https://bitwarden.com/products/personal/#whats-the-differenc...
Edit: it actually disappeared for some time but they put it back on May 18
snapshot from May 15: https://web.archive.org/web/20260515190646/https://bitwarden...
snapshot from May 18: https://web.archive.org/web/20260518183728/https://bitwarden...
The page addresses this:
> The “Always free” motto quietly reappeared on the site after its removal was uncovered and went viral on Fedi.
(And the linked article gives evidence: <https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-quiet-renovation-at-bitwarden#:...>.)
I dont think its an over reaction. It's pretty common to lock in users by removing or imposing cost on exports. Having an export from today is a lot better than having nothing in 5 years when bitwarden disables exports
> in 5 years when bitwarden disables exports
i think this is the overreaction - getting worked up about these sort of risks in general isn’t worth your time.
Otherwise you’d end up self-hosting everything strictly on OSS from maintainers you personally know and trust.
This is like someone saying, “don’t use AWS because they might raise prices some day”
Well it did happen - and then unhappened when people noticed.
There have been plenty of cases like this over time too. Company makes controversial change. Company rolls it back after outrage. Company slowly shifts over time until they've restored what's essentially the original controversial change.
When a company tells you their intention by announcing a change, it's often a good idea to listen. Even if their PR department does some good cleanup work in the aftermath.
I had checked as soon as I found out about the news the other day and it was there. I just checked on wayback machine and you're right, it was removed for some time. However, if they're willing to put back that claim immediately, I doubt that their intention was to drop the free plan anytime soon, but probably it was to incentivize people to use the paid plans. Enshittification must happen sooner or later afterall, but fortunately vaultwarden exists and the export feature is highly unlikely gonna be removed immediately as the free plan disappears, so people could just switch to a third-party or self-hosted backend as soon as that happens.
>Enshittification must happen sooner or later afterall...
No it absolutely must not.
You're right, pardon my cynical remark. I'm just disillusioned by the promises of most tech companies
Pardon my tone, as well - the enshittification is exhausting.
> Enshittification must happen sooner or later afterall
There are a fair amount of multi-hundred year old companies out there.
My last job was for a product which launched with a promise of a free tier forever, which they removed a year or two ago.
I'm not seeing "Always free" on that page browsing from mobile. Also, it breaks my back button. Yeah... I'm going to need to switch.
It is not an overreaction at all to them replacing the principled leader who promised things with the vulture leader whose job and job history is primarily to enshittify things and sell them off.
How is it an incredible overreaction? It's not like switching password managers is particularly arduous or expensive.