"The perpetual guest", starring OpenID

Apparently Facebook Connect is about to take over the world. Again.

And the OpenID world reacts.

One can debate whether the set of standards that make up the Open Stack is too large and causes potential implementors and users to shy away from its implementation. I’m not sure.

I claim, however, that a big reason single sign such as OpenID has failed to take off is that its very ease of use is actually its own enemy!

The binding of the potential web site user to the site visited is much weaker when using OpenID, than if the user had created an account and logged in. Without an account, the user becomes a guest, and a web site wants visitors to become anything but just guests. It wants decided, committed users.

The direct mailing business figured this out. Still today, when you decide to join a service, you return one of the postage-free reply cards. But before you mail it, you do something seemingly insane. You stick the bright “YES” sticker onto the empty space where it says “PLACE YES STICKER HERE”.

Why?

Because they make you do that to create in your mind a commitment. A stronger bond. They don’t want you to coast into their service and feel no obligation and just leave. They want the commitment, the guilt, all the good stuff that keeps you there for a while.

OpenID provides the opposite. When I log into a site using OpenID, I am a tourist, a perpetual guest. I easily slip in, browse around, check things out, and leave. Nothing there to keep me. Nothing to make a mental commitment to the site.

(And if the site first lets me log in with OpenID and then makes me create an account, then it just plainly sucks, and I will never go there again. Only solution is to never accept OpenID in the first place.)

This is a real problem that seems to not be discussed much. I’m not sure it is solvable with any single sign on.

Comments

[Sanda]

Hi,
are you Hans that once answered experties questions at the site csjobb.idg?

[Hans]

Yep, that's me. :)