YASIHTCAAF – Too many logins…
I’m tired of creating accounts. For a while I used fake information to fill out these forms. Typing in a random noun into google maps and using that information. There are probably 5000 accounts pointing back to email address I’ve used over the past 10 years. Gardening forums, sql server forums, video game forums, you name it, they all require logins.
Sure, I’ll login to my email and confirm, yes, I realize you’ll send me shit in the email on my birthday and invite me back when I don’t post any more. Good thing you have a forgot password link because your irrelevant username/password requirements force me to use credentials I’m not familiar with. Thanks for being so concerned somebody might steal my account on your video game forum. Oh look, a captcha. Deciphering “cvx88s0Q” from what looks like a childs finger-painting is always fun.
Now I usually just go someplace else anytime a site requires me to login to see some content. Do I really need to read that programming article? Does my rpg character really need to find that sword? Increasingly, the answer is no and I don’t think I’m alone.
If your thinking of starting a new internet site, like some kind of discussion board or user voted content cms sharing link thing, you might want to think about taking advantage of the “uniquitus login” tools that are starting to popup. Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, Myspace all support this kind of interaction. You’d be hard pressed to find an internet user without an account one one of these websites.
I’m betting that propietary user account registration systems are going start fading out in the next couple of years. We already have these digital identities, digital identies we use on a daily basis, it makes sense to allow users to use these systems instead of sining up for yet another account. I’m sure there are others like me who are willing just to walk away when hit with Yet Another Site I Have To Create An Account For.