I hate to register on sites but I often do. This is because if I expect the trade off between the pain of registration against the value I expect to get from co

I hate to register on sites but I often do. This is because if I expect the trade off between the pain of registration against the value I expect to get from continuing to use the full functionality to be positive then I sign up. My pain from registration is largely due to the friction from having to think up a unique username (I hate when my favorite username is already taken) and making up a password. I am really not bothered by receiving email from services as most respectable sites will unsubscribe you with one click and if they don't I simply mark their email as spam. I never sign up with social services (GooFaceTwit) due to my irrational fear that at some point my activity on the site will be made public without my consent. Your takeaway as a product owner I think is that if you are building a service for technical folks (would your typical user hang out on HN? If so, read on. If not, ymmv), you should really think about if your service truly needs user registration (I have seen some creative workarounds that don't impose a burden on the customer and still allow the product to achieve business objectives). If you do need registration, you should remove as many impediments as you can (meaningful engagement prior to registration, email as username, only ask for information you absolutely need to have, stagger your profile updates within the user lifecycle, etc). Personally, I would like to see a structural solution to the registration problem. This is such a common issue for a significant portion of the web that it should be solved at the browser level. Why is there not a "Register for this site" button on the browser chrome? The user signs into their browser and from then on can simply create an account on any site by clicking the button. A little drop down or tooltip can show what information they need to share to successfully register so the user is making an informed choice. I shouldn't need to enter a user name password combo on any website ever again and the entire process should be as easy as hitting the back button.