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I mean, sure, but it does thwart the vast majority of users who don’t even know this is an option. Most people don't know you can have an email from someone oth

I mean, sure, but it does thwart the vast majority of users who don’t even know this is an option. Most people don't know you can have an email from someone other than the major providers, let alone on a custom domain or selfhosted. At the end of the day, nothing will thwart a determined person. But that’s not the goal. If it deters the vast majority of your users from making duplicate accounts, then it’s still a success. Perfect is the enemy of good, after all.

xp84 2y ago
Yes, and another super cool thing is the prevention of accidental screwups where someone typos their email. If the typo collides with an existing account after normalization, it could be (correctly) rejected. Without this normalization index, you could have ronx@gmail pre-existing, someone trying to type "rob.x" typos "ron.x" -- and now a bunch of emails start going out to poor "ronx" (who often doesn't understand what's going on, thinks his account is 'hacked,' etc. Ideally, the system would (for Gmail addresses) reject "ron.x" knowing it's basically tied to an existing user.