That it's no less secure than what we do now is not a mark against it, though. Giving up control can be a good thing. I don't need to keep up to date on passwo

That it's no less secure than what we do now is not a mark against it, though. Giving up control can be a good thing. I don't need to keep up to date on password hashing techniques, or worry about sending passwords in the clear. As a user, I can improve my login security unilaterally; I can use a hardware token without every site I use needing to implement support for it. As a user, sites that want as much control as you seem to scare me. I think it's too early to say what the marketing/tech support/social effects will be. Clearly nobody is going to use OpenID for Really Important Stuff in the near future, but there are a lot of use cases between toys and RIS. Your last paragraph coming true is a very real risk, and it would disappoint me tremendously. In the meantime, I think that OpenID shows a lot of promise. edit: We're coming at this from different angles. OpenID will first be adopted by (is being adopted by) small sites that don't care about the things that you do. Bug trackers, wikis, forums, blogs, sites like this one. Once it's well established there, then we can start talking about the kind of sites you're talking about.