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Removing email registration improved retention

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Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#31

Post by ipnon »

londons_explore wrote: post #15
davnicwil wrote: post #7

The article mentions the tradeoff of username Vs email of increased willingness for people to sign up Vs losing the simple channel for password reset, but does not propose a solution outside of non-expiring cookies, which to me isn't really a satisfactory solution (though perhaps it works OK enough in practice for some types of use cases). In my view, for most applications, the upside is not really worth that downsid…

The Reddit model of "email address is optional, but if you don't provide it you can't ever reset your password" works well.

Old Reddit is the epitome of user friendly web design.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#33

Post by c22 »

davnicwil wrote: post #7

The article mentions the tradeoff of username Vs email of increased willingness for people to sign up Vs losing the simple channel for password reset, but does not propose a solution outside of non-expiring cookies, which to me isn't really a satisfactory solution (though perhaps it works OK enough in practice for some types of use cases). In my view, for most applications, the upside is not really worth that downsid…

I ran a small system for awhile where you could designate three other users to act as backup. If you needed to reset your password each of the three backups would receive a unique token and a request that they forward it to you out of band. With all three tokens you could reset your password. This was optional, though, and in addition to a classic email based reset flow. Obviously a solution like this would only really be feasible for a few niche applications.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#34

Post by macrael »

10 years ago (!) Instapaper changed its tune and started requiring emails for new accounts. Before it had not required emails (just usernames) and even didn't require passwords, and after living with that for years Marco decided to switch back to the more traditional form.

https://blog.instapaper.com/post/2318776738

It's interesting to think that times may have changed and that people are hesitant to give out their email addresses anymore, but you are giving up some real benefits by leaving it out.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#35

Post by franga2000 »

chrisdbanks wrote: post #28

Email registration is the gateway drug to conversion. We AB tested this. Requiring users to sign up meant we got fewer sign ups but a higher conversion rate to premium. So although we had fewer users, more paid. Giving your email is a committment. Maybe once you've made a small committment it's easier to make a bigger committment. If you're running a commercial product, especially freemium, it's not just about number…

> Maybe once you've made a small committment it's easier to make a bigger committment.

It's definitely not the whole story, but this is a pretty well-studied thing in psychology. A similar trick in social engineering is to ask your mark for a small favor, which will make them more likely to do you a bigger favor later. I've read about it many times, but can't for the life of me remember what it was called...

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#36

Post by c22 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #29
petercooper wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone number, I guess. Sending SMS messages en masse is expensive or heavily regulated in much of the world and it doesn't particularly suit frequent "spamming" so people of a younger generation may be more willing to hand it over(?)

That hasn't been true lately. Lately I'm getting spammed at least a dozen times a day by SMS.

Yeah, I have a number that I "hand over" and another number I don't. The public number is inundated with spam SMS to the point that I don't even bother checking them anymore. And this is with pretty conservative behavior: even though I have a dedicated number for this purpose I still avoid entering it unless I absolutely have to.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#37

Post by sbx320 »

throwayws wrote: post #24
gwbas1c wrote: post #13

Honestly, I hate managing accounts and passwords so much that I'll walk away when a "create an account" is thrown in my face. Login via Google / Facebook / Whatever is sometimes helpful, but it usually results in SPAM. For example, I logged into Redfin through Google and they immediately started spamming me. Other times, when I login through Facebook and disable sharing my email, the site that I'm trying to log into…

How do you avoid getting spam to random addresses using catchall?

Personally I haven't been hit with spam to truly random addresses with my catchall. Is that a common issue people run into?

The spam I've received on my catchall is either based on previously breached sites (which I once signed up to) or to very common mailbox names (e.g. postmaster@, info@). I just add those to an auto-reject postfix filter based on the intended recipient, which keeps my inbox very clean.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#38

Post by abstrct »

jpalomaki wrote: post #26

Ask me email, but don't force me to verify it before letting me in. While I'm browsing, show me a prominent warning that my email is not yet verified. Include my email address in the warning so that I can catch possible typos.

This scares me a bit. A part of email validation is ensuring they actually own that account. It depends on the sensitivity of the service to an extent but I don't think it's appropriate to let somebody interact as if they were a specific email account until they've proven it's theirs.

Edit: I do like the recommendation of showing them the email they're waiting to validate so that they can see typos.

Re: Removing email registration improved retention

#39

Post by c22 »

londons_explore wrote: post #19
ghaff wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He does mention, somewhat off-handedly, that the lack of email makes password recovery harder. (Presumably impossible without some other communications channel like a phone number.) And you really need to be able to recover account access for a paid subscription. It's probably also reasonable to assume that if someone is going to give you a credit card number and address, they're probably OK with giving you an email.

I run a site that takes payments for a subscription, but then just stores a cookie on the users machine proving they've paid. It will give them the cookie again if they re-visit from any IP they've previously used. It also re-gives them the cookie if they try to pay again with the same credit card. Support just tells people to try to resubscribe if their subscription has 'vanished' - but it seems to happen to very fe…

This is pretty clever, but people might get double billed if they accidentally try to confirm their account with a different card than they used to sign up.
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