6 ms·

Magic Login Is Dead

45 points by debdut 5y ago

justinnoeldev 5y ago
Here's my take on this: https://twitter.com/JustinNoelDev/status/1455577601272164354 https://twitter.com/JustinNoelDev/status/1455577601272164354
debdut 5y ago
The author https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=protoduction https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=protoduction wrote this: Half a year back or so I built a mini SaaS product that failed, now I'm in the process of open sourcing it so that everybody can freely host it for themselves. Here's the project homepage https://magiclogin.net https://magiclogin.net, it was/is transactional e-mails and e-mail authentication as a service. Getting it ready for open sourcing is a lot more work than I anticipated, I don't want to just dump it in a Github repo and have nobody be able to actually use it, so I'm making deployment easier and writing docs on how to run it yourself. I didn't build the project to make money necessarily, it was mostly a learning project. That doesn't mean that I didn't hope it would be at least moderately succesful financially. But it was a case of "build and they won't come" and my other projects took off much more so I couldn't justify trying to market/pivot it. The final nail in the coffin came when I received a cease and desist letter because apparently a vc-funded auth provider trademarked the term "Magic Login".. So yeah..
binwiederhier 5y ago
That's a neat idea. Couldn't they just rename the service? Seems like they've been waiting for an opportunity to pull the plug. Or maybe I'm misreading it.
- kgeist 5y ago
  Probably. Our company received a similar letter from Adobe 15 years ago, we simply changed the name and still in business without a problem.
easton_s 5y ago
Noticed this type of login on a site I use: A one time password send directly to email. Still deciding if I like it or not...
- Cymrukicks 5y ago
  It can be so damn annoying on android, When you mail client opens its own browser instead of the default. You close the screen to do something else comeback and have to login again.
  - SahAssar 5y ago
    IIRC one can register a protocol handler so that the browser that you opened the site in will be the handler for the link: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/registerProtocolHandler https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/r... Haven't tried it myself though
  - kordlessagain 5y ago
    I've built a similar system which sends the token for copying and a link for clicking. It also uses SMS if the user provides their phone number.
- wdb 5y ago
  Yeah, pretty annoying when you want to access a site on your iPad without any mail client configured. I ended up needing to use airdrop to send the login link to the iPad. Totally not user friendly in my case.
blitzar 5y ago
> We never charged anybody or collected payment details for our service. Browses to pricing tab ... Fair, low pricing No dark patterns here, you simply pay for what you use with a lower limit. And still it's cheaper than the competition.
- protoduction 5y ago
  I didn't want to have any free tier (for now), but also it wasn't worth my time to actually implement payments until I had enough users - a point it didn't reach. So every user was in a trial that never expired, despite what it said on the frontpage.
  - blitzar 5y ago
    Perfectly reasonable, but it is advertised as a commercial service. I echo the others that suggest a rebrand and resume trading as usual.
numair 5y ago
People who invested in the insane attempt to trademark-troll the term "magic link," which drove this person out of business: * Tiger Global * Northzone * Lightspeed Ventures * SV Angel * Social Capital * Balaji Srinivasan * Ryan Hoover * Alexis Ohanian * Naval Ravikant Just remember, these are supposed to be sophisticated investors who have technical skills and do due diligence... And you're supposed to see their names on a deal and go, "oh, well, if they invested, there must be something of value here!" Yeah, no. They are literally shareholders in an attempt to trademark-troll into taking ownership over a very basic form of user authentication. So pathetic.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  > And you're supposed to see their names on a deal and go, "oh, well, if they invested, there must be something of value here!" I think that ship sailed a long time ago, nowadays it seems like many investors invest based on the ability to hype other investors which becomes self-perpetuating. I wasn't surprised to see that https://magic.link/ https://magic.link/ says it's "Blockchain native".
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Investors invest in things that make money. If trademark trolling is profitable, they will invest in it. What's surprising?
  - godshatter 5y ago
    The complete lack of ethics in the investment community?
    - sonicanatidae 5y ago
      I do not disagree with you, but nothing about humans favors ethics. Human nature, sadly, favors "F-U, I got mine", and when it comes to money, it's even worse.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
demarq 5y ago
I urge the founder to reconsider. A strongly worded letter is common and is usually far more bark than bite. Has the OP considered consulting with a lawyer? I'm sure there are better alternatives than shutting the whole thing down.
- protoduction 5y ago
  Given that it's not a commercial product anyway at this point, the plan is to open source the project in its entirety. If it catches on, and there seems to be a demand for a managed version of it, then I (or someone else) can pick it up again under a different name.
- spicybright 5y ago
  I'd do the same OP is. Lawyers are expensive.
  - nikolay 5y ago
    Why not just change it to "login link" or some alternative branding instead?
- nikolay 5y ago
  Big companies such as Auth0 are no shy about using "magic link" and don't care. It's an industry term, and not all registered trademarks are legit and unconditional, and all those trolls want is to lose "their" trademark, obviously!
spicybright 5y ago
tRaDeMaRkS eNcOuRaGe iNnOvAtIoN
- anaganisk 5y ago
  You know, it’s a two sided coin. It protects you from, companies like Amazon or Google ripping your business names and launching their own versions. Also it helps companies like Disney to sue people who used their spiderman logo, to print a birthday poster. May be innovators should innovate their product name to start with.

45 points by debdut 5y ago

Here's my take on this: https://twitter.com/JustinNoelDev/status/1455577601272164354 https://twitter.com/JustinNoelDev/status/1455577601272164354

debdut 5y ago

The author https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=protoduction https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=protoduction wrote this: Half a year back or so I built a mini SaaS product that failed, now I'm in the process of open sourcing it so that everybody can freely host it for themselves. Here's the project homepage https://magiclogin.net https://magiclogin.net, it was/is transactional e-mails and e-mail authentication as a service. Getting it ready for open sourcing is a lot more work than I anticipated, I don't want to just dump it in a Github repo and have nobody be able to actually use it, so I'm making deployment easier and writing docs on how to run it yourself. I didn't build the project to make money necessarily, it was mostly a learning project. That doesn't mean that I didn't hope it would be at least moderately succesful financially. But it was a case of "build and they won't come" and my other projects took off much more so I couldn't justify trying to market/pivot it. The final nail in the coffin came when I received a cease and desist letter because apparently a vc-funded auth provider trademarked the term "Magic Login".. So yeah..

binwiederhier 5y ago

That's a neat idea. Couldn't they just rename the service? Seems like they've been waiting for an opportunity to pull the plug. Or maybe I'm misreading it.

kgeist 5y ago
Probably. Our company received a similar letter from Adobe 15 years ago, we simply changed the name and still in business without a problem.

easton_s 5y ago

Noticed this type of login on a site I use: A one time password send directly to email. Still deciding if I like it or not...

Cymrukicks 5y ago
It can be so damn annoying on android, When you mail client opens its own browser instead of the default. You close the screen to do something else comeback and have to login again.
- SahAssar 5y ago
  IIRC one can register a protocol handler so that the browser that you opened the site in will be the handler for the link: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/registerProtocolHandler https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/r... Haven't tried it myself though
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  I've built a similar system which sends the token for copying and a link for clicking. It also uses SMS if the user provides their phone number.
wdb 5y ago
Yeah, pretty annoying when you want to access a site on your iPad without any mail client configured. I ended up needing to use airdrop to send the login link to the iPad. Totally not user friendly in my case.

blitzar 5y ago

> We never charged anybody or collected payment details for our service. Browses to pricing tab ... Fair, low pricing No dark patterns here, you simply pay for what you use with a lower limit. And still it's cheaper than the competition.

protoduction 5y ago
I didn't want to have any free tier (for now), but also it wasn't worth my time to actually implement payments until I had enough users - a point it didn't reach. So every user was in a trial that never expired, despite what it said on the frontpage.
- blitzar 5y ago
  Perfectly reasonable, but it is advertised as a commercial service. I echo the others that suggest a rebrand and resume trading as usual.

numair 5y ago

People who invested in the insane attempt to trademark-troll the term "magic link," which drove this person out of business: * Tiger Global * Northzone * Lightspeed Ventures * SV Angel * Social Capital * Balaji Srinivasan * Ryan Hoover * Alexis Ohanian * Naval Ravikant Just remember, these are supposed to be sophisticated investors who have technical skills and do due diligence... And you're supposed to see their names on a deal and go, "oh, well, if they invested, there must be something of value here!" Yeah, no. They are literally shareholders in an attempt to trademark-troll into taking ownership over a very basic form of user authentication. So pathetic.

SahAssar 5y ago
> And you're supposed to see their names on a deal and go, "oh, well, if they invested, there must be something of value here!" I think that ship sailed a long time ago, nowadays it seems like many investors invest based on the ability to hype other investors which becomes self-perpetuating. I wasn't surprised to see that https://magic.link/ https://magic.link/ says it's "Blockchain native".
beaconstudios 5y ago
Investors invest in things that make money. If trademark trolling is profitable, they will invest in it. What's surprising?
- godshatter 5y ago
  The complete lack of ethics in the investment community?
  - sonicanatidae 5y ago
    I do not disagree with you, but nothing about humans favors ethics. Human nature, sadly, favors "F-U, I got mine", and when it comes to money, it's even worse.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago

demarq 5y ago

I urge the founder to reconsider. A strongly worded letter is common and is usually far more bark than bite. Has the OP considered consulting with a lawyer? I'm sure there are better alternatives than shutting the whole thing down.

protoduction 5y ago
Given that it's not a commercial product anyway at this point, the plan is to open source the project in its entirety. If it catches on, and there seems to be a demand for a managed version of it, then I (or someone else) can pick it up again under a different name.
spicybright 5y ago
I'd do the same OP is. Lawyers are expensive.
- nikolay 5y ago
  Why not just change it to "login link" or some alternative branding instead?
nikolay 5y ago
Big companies such as Auth0 are no shy about using "magic link" and don't care. It's an industry term, and not all registered trademarks are legit and unconditional, and all those trolls want is to lose "their" trademark, obviously!

spicybright 5y ago

tRaDeMaRkS eNcOuRaGe iNnOvAtIoN

anaganisk 5y ago
You know, it’s a two sided coin. It protects you from, companies like Amazon or Google ripping your business names and launching their own versions. Also it helps companies like Disney to sue people who used their spiderman logo, to print a birthday poster. May be innovators should innovate their product name to start with.