5 ms·

> How do you screw up account migration? I've always assumed this is just a dark pattern. There's no excuse.

shadowgovt 3y ago
The excuse is simple: Microsoft is completely disinterested in maintaining two disjoint account management services (complete with all the security, auditing, and attack-surface headaches that entails). Same reason one's YouTube login is their Google login is their Blogger login.
- Kye 3y ago
  Google's login situation is because they tried to turn everyone into a Google+ user whether they wanted to be or not. Very different histories.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Not exactly. G+ was contemporary with / the spearhead for that initiative, but the desire to reify login was something Google was planning to do for awhile; they just used G+ as the focus project around which to pin the initiative. Nobody at Google was really thrilled with having three (four? five?) credential stacks, all with their own bespoke tooling, concept of what an "account" was, security stories, and administrative needs. (... the one thing that came out of G+ that has stuck around is infrastructure improvements. A lot of the stuff the G+ team wrote to support Google+ behind-the-scenes is still used at Google for other projects now).
    - Brian_K_White 3y ago
      And yet it is ridiculous that I have to respond to a 2fa on my phone just to watch youtube on my laptop, every. time. I have a paid yt account fine, but watching trivial videos is not in the same class with accessing my gmail, or managing my gmail, or even managing my own videos if I were a youtuber. I'm fine with being one identity (well no I'm not but pretend I am) but those are not all the same activity or class of activity.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        Hm. I don't, and now I'm curious why. My login never asks me to 2FA on my regular devices.
        Kye 3y ago
        I've had that problem on websites when I turned on the strictest privacy settings.
        Maken 3y ago
        Maybe they are subtly discouraging you from using those settings.
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        This.
- smolder 3y ago
  I held on to my youtube-only YouTube account for a long time, until I realized they'd shadow banned me and my comments to creators weren't getting through, for no reason that I can think of.
yamtaddle 3y ago
They also make it really, really hard to purchase the goddamn game for your kid and set it so they can play on your local server. I've done it three times, and just budget a full damn hour for it at this point, though I think the first time took more like three hours. I mean, they did get my money so I guess why should they care, but I have no idea how people without an actual computer science degree and mumble years of experience un-fucking broken computer horse-shit manage to get through the process. [EDIT] Oh, advice to any parents considering embarking on this: just lie about your kid's age. Don't try to use their child accounts. It makes the whole thing a much bigger pain in the ass. And while I'm at it, may as well ask: anyone got a good list of allowlist addresses for Minecraft? I lock down my kids' laptops (you know, like a responsible parent is supposed to) but modern Minecraft is so full of friggin' spyware that it can't even launch without connecting to a bunch of never-seen-before IP addresses every time it starts, which means I have to go put in a pin multiple times to allow those new addresses every single time.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  They make money by renting servers, self hosting is a relic from the olden days and Microsoft would prefer you just signed up for Realms
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    Sure, but even the purchase itself is painful. Having to navigate to an account management screen (which one? There are wrong ones that will be of no help) and change some XBox setting (LOL WTF?) to get local-network multiplayer working is just adding insult to injury, the core problem is that doing anything with Microsoft accounts including trying to give them money is bizarrely complicated in a way that zero other services I've ever used has been.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      Aah, I can't speak to the Xbox experience at all, I've only used the Java edition on PC where they give you a jar for the server and you run it somewhere

The excuse is simple: Microsoft is completely disinterested in maintaining two disjoint account management services (complete with all the security, auditing, and attack-surface headaches that entails). Same reason one's YouTube login is their Google login is their Blogger login.

Kye 3y ago
Google's login situation is because they tried to turn everyone into a Google+ user whether they wanted to be or not. Very different histories.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Not exactly. G+ was contemporary with / the spearhead for that initiative, but the desire to reify login was something Google was planning to do for awhile; they just used G+ as the focus project around which to pin the initiative. Nobody at Google was really thrilled with having three (four? five?) credential stacks, all with their own bespoke tooling, concept of what an "account" was, security stories, and administrative needs. (... the one thing that came out of G+ that has stuck around is infrastructure improvements. A lot of the stuff the G+ team wrote to support Google+ behind-the-scenes is still used at Google for other projects now).
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    And yet it is ridiculous that I have to respond to a 2fa on my phone just to watch youtube on my laptop, every. time. I have a paid yt account fine, but watching trivial videos is not in the same class with accessing my gmail, or managing my gmail, or even managing my own videos if I were a youtuber. I'm fine with being one identity (well no I'm not but pretend I am) but those are not all the same activity or class of activity.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      Hm. I don't, and now I'm curious why. My login never asks me to 2FA on my regular devices.
      - Kye 3y ago
        I've had that problem on websites when I turned on the strictest privacy settings.
        Maken 3y ago
        Maybe they are subtly discouraging you from using those settings.
        Brian_K_White 3y ago
        This.
smolder 3y ago
I held on to my youtube-only YouTube account for a long time, until I realized they'd shadow banned me and my comments to creators weren't getting through, for no reason that I can think of.

yamtaddle 3y ago

They also make it really, really hard to purchase the goddamn game for your kid and set it so they can play on your local server. I've done it three times, and just budget a full damn hour for it at this point, though I think the first time took more like three hours. I mean, they did get my money so I guess why should they care, but I have no idea how people without an actual computer science degree and mumble years of experience un-fucking broken computer horse-shit manage to get through the process. [EDIT] Oh, advice to any parents considering embarking on this: just lie about your kid's age. Don't try to use their child accounts. It makes the whole thing a much bigger pain in the ass. And while I'm at it, may as well ask: anyone got a good list of allowlist addresses for Minecraft? I lock down my kids' laptops (you know, like a responsible parent is supposed to) but modern Minecraft is so full of friggin' spyware that it can't even launch without connecting to a bunch of never-seen-before IP addresses every time it starts, which means I have to go put in a pin multiple times to allow those new addresses every single time.

wlesieutre 3y ago
They make money by renting servers, self hosting is a relic from the olden days and Microsoft would prefer you just signed up for Realms
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  Sure, but even the purchase itself is painful. Having to navigate to an account management screen (which one? There are wrong ones that will be of no help) and change some XBox setting (LOL WTF?) to get local-network multiplayer working is just adding insult to injury, the core problem is that doing anything with Microsoft accounts including trying to give them money is bizarrely complicated in a way that zero other services I've ever used has been.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Aah, I can't speak to the Xbox experience at all, I've only used the Java edition on PC where they give you a jar for the server and you run it somewhere