3 ms·

Google Accounts are free and simple to create, so if a user doesn't want to "link everything together" they can create a new separate account that they only use

Google Accounts are free and simple to create, so if a user doesn't want to "link everything together" they can create a new separate account that they only use for Kapwing. Plus, we're aren't "linking" to your Facebook/Google data; we're just reading your name and email from your account. We decided to rely on Google and Facebook for three reasons: 1. It's technically easier, and since so few users care about needed to sign in with one of them it's a low-priority feature request to add email sign in. 2. My co-founder and I worked on Google's identity team for a year. The fact is that passwords SUCK - people hate them and they lead to a huge amount of friction in UX. Reducing the number of passwords that a user needs to remember is a huge benefit. 3. Having user's "real" identity helps with validating credit card transactions, sending follow-up receipts and confirmations, and personalizing the site. If we do one day become a social network, we're less likely to be taken over by bots.

gumby 9y ago
Your blog post already explained why you thought this would be a good idea from your POV; I was pointing out that it's not uniformly a good idea from your customer's POV. But your reply to me was also from your perspective, not from a wide spectrum of customers'. That's a limit to growth. The friction of "simply" creating a new account on a different site in order to use yours? Forget it! If your business runs the way you want it to then what I'm saying doesn't matter to you, and shouldn't. I don't mean this as criticism (BTW I doubt you know about the failure rate because people who don't want to do that are most likely to silently go away without becoming customers. It's like a paywall, or those horrible splash screens that you have to click-away that try to get me to sign up before showing me the content. I simply refuse to visit those sites (I have a blacklist keystroke) so the people who deploy those antipatterns don't even know they are missing out on pageviews. Instead the collect only the positives and reason from there.)
- jrnichols 9y ago
  I'm of the same mindset. I won't make a Google account just for a website login, and I won't use Facebook login for anything at all after an experience with winding up in "Facebook Jail" after they decided an image I posted "violated community standards" and then unable to log into another account I had tied to Facebook. I don't know if it was a transient issue or what, but it made me step back from using anything that required such logins. I run my own email still, and I won't manage to get locked out of my own stuff. The same cannot be said of Google or Facebook.
theamk 9y ago
Google accounts are not really simple to create if you want to keep things separate. I have had to create a number of separate Google accounts (for cheap tablets I do not really trust), and it seems Google randomly locks them, requires phone number verification, and does other annoying things.
BeetleB 9y ago
>Google Accounts are free and simple to create, so if a user doesn't want to "link everything together" they can create a new separate account that they only use for Kapwing. Plus, we're aren't "linking" to your Facebook/Google data; we're just reading your name and email from your account. I don't know about Kapwing, but the problems with this: 1. Simple to create? I just went to the page and it wants birthday, gender, phone number, among other things. And then on top of that, I'm sure there will be a bit more work to confirm my identity (text message or email). Certainly not trivial. And will I need to go yet one more step to confirm anything from Kapwing? 2. Do I need to now monitor this new account for stuff from you? Overhead for me to maintain yet another account, in order to maintain yet a third account (Kapwing). Benefits of email for me: 1. It's easier to create a throwaway temporary email account than to create a Google account. It is intentionally easier. They exist just for this purpose. Not sure if you've tried it. 2. Clicking on a confirmation link is easy for me. >Having user's "real" identity helps with validating credit card transactions, sending follow-up receipts and confirmations, and personalizing the site. This is where creating a separate Google account just for your site would be a negative. I'd have to set it up to forward to my email. I'd rather just get the email from you directly.

gumby 9y ago

Your blog post already explained why you thought this would be a good idea from your POV; I was pointing out that it's not uniformly a good idea from your customer's POV. But your reply to me was also from your perspective, not from a wide spectrum of customers'. That's a limit to growth. The friction of "simply" creating a new account on a different site in order to use yours? Forget it! If your business runs the way you want it to then what I'm saying doesn't matter to you, and shouldn't. I don't mean this as criticism (BTW I doubt you know about the failure rate because people who don't want to do that are most likely to silently go away without becoming customers. It's like a paywall, or those horrible splash screens that you have to click-away that try to get me to sign up before showing me the content. I simply refuse to visit those sites (I have a blacklist keystroke) so the people who deploy those antipatterns don't even know they are missing out on pageviews. Instead the collect only the positives and reason from there.)

jrnichols 9y ago
I'm of the same mindset. I won't make a Google account just for a website login, and I won't use Facebook login for anything at all after an experience with winding up in "Facebook Jail" after they decided an image I posted "violated community standards" and then unable to log into another account I had tied to Facebook. I don't know if it was a transient issue or what, but it made me step back from using anything that required such logins. I run my own email still, and I won't manage to get locked out of my own stuff. The same cannot be said of Google or Facebook.

theamk 9y ago

Google accounts are not really simple to create if you want to keep things separate. I have had to create a number of separate Google accounts (for cheap tablets I do not really trust), and it seems Google randomly locks them, requires phone number verification, and does other annoying things.

BeetleB 9y ago

>Google Accounts are free and simple to create, so if a user doesn't want to "link everything together" they can create a new separate account that they only use for Kapwing. Plus, we're aren't "linking" to your Facebook/Google data; we're just reading your name and email from your account. I don't know about Kapwing, but the problems with this: 1. Simple to create? I just went to the page and it wants birthday, gender, phone number, among other things. And then on top of that, I'm sure there will be a bit more work to confirm my identity (text message or email). Certainly not trivial. And will I need to go yet one more step to confirm anything from Kapwing? 2. Do I need to now monitor this new account for stuff from you? Overhead for me to maintain yet another account, in order to maintain yet a third account (Kapwing). Benefits of email for me: 1. It's easier to create a throwaway temporary email account than to create a Google account. It is intentionally easier. They exist just for this purpose. Not sure if you've tried it. 2. Clicking on a confirmation link is easy for me. >Having user's "real" identity helps with validating credit card transactions, sending follow-up receipts and confirmations, and personalizing the site. This is where creating a separate Google account just for your site would be a negative. I'd have to set it up to forward to my email. I'd rather just get the email from you directly.