4 ms·

So we don't actually need passwords. For many services magic links are better (imho)

• kgwxd 8y ago
  I'd prefer to be able to sign up for things without giving out any contact info until a service proves useful enough to deserve it. Also, what happens when your email account gets closed unexpectedly? You'd have to give multiple forms of contact to avoid problems. Fine for stuff like banks, but not for cool-new-service-of-the-day.
  • r3bl 8y ago
    Use your own domain and just switch email providers? Yeah, it costs a bit and requires some understanding, but at least among the HN crowd that's not an unsolvable problem.
• edent 8y ago
  The problem with magic links is that it makes your email address a single-point-of-failure. It's also a rather inconvenient workflow having to switch to another app or webpage.
  • judge2020 8y ago
    Email is still the biggest single point of failure for almost every account, excluding things like Apple with 2FA and (good) banks, even without magic links being a thing. I do agree that it's inconvenient to have to switch to another tab/window whenever you want to log in though, this is a problem solved with password manager browser extensions.
• admax88q 8y ago
  For most services I totally agree, magic links to email accounts are better. Lot's of people seem to be concerned over the "single point of failure" that provides, but honestly for most of these accounts if I lost access to them, then I'll just make another. Heck my username is admax88q because I forgot/lost the password to admax88. I really don't care if worst case I have to make new accounts for Newegg/Aliexpress/Amazon/Medium/reddit/HN/twitch/dailymotion/(insert random startup app I'll probably only try once)