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Email was one's passport and identity. Before Facebook became a true alternative for verifying one's identity on the web, the email address was how one accompli
by footpath 12y ago
Email was one's passport and identity. Before Facebook became a true alternative for verifying one's identity on the web, the email address was how one accomplished serious things on the Internet. Want to verify a bank account? Email. Amazon? Email. Forums? Email. Even Facebook in the early days? Email.
Looking at Facebook's sign up page right now, and it seems that email is still required for registering a new account.
The thing is, almost every Internet service still requires an email address to sign up, and that ranges from mobile games to ecommerce shops. Some services provide the alternatives of allowing users to sign up via Facebook/Twitter/Google+; but in order for the users to get a Facebook/Twitter/Google+ account, they'll still need to sign up using an email address. Besides, almost all services that allow social network sign-in gives their users the option to sign up with email as well.
The services that do not allow email signups are few and far between -- like Medium.com, for example, but as said before, in order to get a Facebook or Twitter account, the user would still need an email address. Even mobile only apps like Whatsapp still appear to require an email address to sign up for their online support site.
- yvsong 12y ago> Email was one's passport and identity. Email is not an identity. Most people have multiple email addresses, and some people share some addresses.
- ejain 12y agoA person can have multiple identities, and not all identities are associated with specific people.
- yvsong 12y agoEmail is not a person's unique ID, although sometimes it's used to serve that purpose. The ID layer of internet is not established yet. I'm not sure if it's possible in a decentralized system. Centralized management may be necessary.
- ejain 12y agoAgree, but "identity" and "unique ID for a person" are two different concepts.
- mythealias 12y agoLast I checked Gmail allowed me to create an account without providing an email address or phone number.
- fragmede 12y agoWhen was this? Currently, you need to provide a code that is texted to a mobile phone for some level of proof of identity.
- spindritf 12y agoI have registered an account last week or so without any codes beyond captcha. It surprised me, too, because for quite a while you needed a mobile. Maybe the requirement is based on some heuristics? IP address, country, other info provided by the user, and so on?
- dennisgorelik 12y agoGmail IS email.
- arielpts 12y agoA lot of services today uses the cellphone number as a more unique identifier. Checkout Stripe.