Reading about it now, it feels like the electron move was a result of the VC money. With pressure to grow comes endless A/B tests, gimmicky features, etc and having too many different platforms means you need to split the work across more devs. Trying to match the extra functionality and have the same look is pretty difficult as a program grows.

That being said I hate that 1Password needs that. It’s just a password manager at the end of the day.

What was the electron pushback? Link?

With 1Password 8, they shared news that they were moving from native (mac) apps to an Electron UI/frontend with a Rust backend. They did an AMA on Reddit, but didn't show up for a while and got hammered by their users. Their refrain, until Dave Teare showed up, was "but it will be on Rust and the backend will be faster" and didn't acknowledge why users might be upset with the move from Native to Electron apps.

https://www.reddit.com/r/1Password/comments/p2dmpt/all_aboar...

I think it was a mistake to even involve the online community. Of course nerds want you to build a high-quality native experience on every platform because they are heavily invested in their platform of choice. Listening to these kinds of users at all will drive your business to ruin.

Honestly building on "tech stack power users hate" is probably the easiest way to fire all your worst, most needy, users.