Read their blogs and you will see that SO is keen that you use any available OpenID provider to log in to their site - they have no interest in any one such pro

Read their blogs and you will see that SO is keen that you use any available OpenID provider to log in to their site - they have no interest in any one such provider. Should you have persevered through the terribly difficult task of establishing a password with them then - wow- you would have had a new OpenID you could have used at other sites - without creating yet another username/password combination. These guys are doing you a favour at their (small) expense and you see it as some sort of con. Some word combination of horse teeth and gift comes to mind - but whingers there will always be.