Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 279 posts

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#131

Post by skmurphy »

Aetius wrote: post #32
skmurphy wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might make the same argument for only supporting IE as the only browser you app works with. I suspect it's actually an issue from day one as there are folks who would sign up but don't because you require Facebook.

Not for my market. 90% of them have facebook accounts.

The fact that they have a facebook account does not mean that they want to use it to login. There is some loss from day one given your strategy.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#132

Post by agazso »

kylec wrote: post #7

This is by far my largest complaint with Quora.

It's interesting, I registered Quora last week and it was optional to use your Facebook or Twitter account to register. It was a bit tricky because it looked like you need it, but you could make progress without it.

But I rechecked a minute ago, and it really required it. It seems that they changed the policy this week.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#133

Post by StavrosK »

binaryfinery wrote: post #110

Yes: Don't force me to log in with facebook. No: Don't force me to make another fucking password. I have a whole shitload of passwords. I use an independent (not in the browser) password tool. I'd really like to be able to generate a password and login automatically: i.e. for my tool and the website to automatically hook up. Oh, yeah that's called OpenID: http://openid.net/get-an-openid/ And no jokes about my tool pl…

The only thing I wish for nowadays is for the public to gain a better understanding of OpenID so we can start using it on every site. It's the best thing to ever come out.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#134

Post by StavrosK »

wvenable wrote: post #122
jrockway wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'd rather not give Jeff my password. So +1 on OpenID.

What's stopping you from setting your password to jeff_sucks? It's pretty memorable too.

Nothing is stopping me from setting my password to something different for every site I don't want to set a good password for, I'd just very very much rather just enter a URL and have everything work. OpenID is the most useful thing online in ages.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#136

Post by michaelbuckbee »

synnik wrote: post #75
saurik wrote: post #70

"I forgot my username/password" is an immense burden on a small company. You end up having to make horrible tradeoffs between privacy and convenience (how do you really verify that this user is really this person?) and end up with a serious support issue for a product that might otherwise not generate much support email at all. To be clear: even if it costs half your conversion rate, it may be valuable, at least unti…

Automated password resets are a solved problem. Either email a new pw or reset link to a known address, or authenticate with "secret questions". Both have their problems, but no small company should waste support time when established techniques are available.

The items you mentioned mitigate but do not "solve" the problem. We often have users forget what email address they used when they first signed up (work, personal, their kids email because they aren't a "computer person", etc). Probably not so coincidentally, these same users are the ones that struggle the most with basic computer tasks like opening a URL from an email, etc.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#137

Post by gregable »

It seems like the reason websites are starting to do this is that facebook authentication gives the developer more information than just an email/credentials. The developer can access all of the basic data in the user's profile and also grab their friend list. This means that later down the line they can automatically connect friends together inside the developer's own service without having to ask their users for that data, which as you know means 90% won't bother. It's essentially a value add to the developer (and much more debatably to the user) over other authentication options. I can see the interest in requiring or at least encouraging users to use this feature.

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#138

Post by jasonkester »

binaryfinery wrote: post #110

Yes: Don't force me to log in with facebook. No: Don't force me to make another fucking password. I have a whole shitload of passwords. I use an independent (not in the browser) password tool. I'd really like to be able to generate a password and login automatically: i.e. for my tool and the website to automatically hook up. Oh, yeah that's called OpenID: http://openid.net/get-an-openid/ And no jokes about my tool pl…

I won't implement OpenID for any site where I have a say. It needs to die so that something good can step into its place.

If you have a site that requires OpenID, I won't use it for the same reason I won't use your site that requires Facebook. If you're going to implement it, make sure you also implement a standard user/pass registration or you'll lose a lot potential users (as in most of them).

Re: Start ups, please don't force me to log in with Facebook

#140

Post by cmelbye »

wccrawford wrote: post #3

I totally agree with this. I've seen a few things lately that wanted my Facebook login and I just went away instead. OpenAuth (via Google or plain) or private authentication would have been fine, but those weren't options.

The main method of Facebook authentication these days is OAuth (which I assume is what you mean by OpenAuth.)
Post reply on HN