

Yahoo Users Befuddled by OpenID - qhoxie
http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Yahoo_Users_Befuddled_by_OpenID

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drinian
The important conclusion, at least from this summary, is that the users saw
the utility of OpenID once it was explained to them.

I suspect that before the mid-1990s most people would be confused by the
concept of "username" and "password," too.

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jasonkester
Strange. The important conclusion that I read is that OpenID is basically
unusable unless you have somebody explain it to you. And then it's still
really unintuitive.

OpenID needs to go away soon so that something useful can replace it.
Something where you type in a username and password. Something that does what
OpenID set out to achieve, yet does it in a way that real users can figure
out.

~~~
drinian
What if OpenID became the default option to log in, rather than hidden behind
a tab, as it often is?

From a technical perspective, I don't think it's possible to ask folks to
input a username and password combination into an untrusted third-party Web
site. What would prevent a hostile site operator from stealing passwords?

~~~
jasonkester
This would happen:

[http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/10/how-close-
to-z...](http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2008/10/how-close-to-zero-
friction-is-your.html)

(It never occured to me that I was opposed to OpenID until somebody put up a
website that required me to use it!)

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chaostheory
I think ClickPass (YC startup) solves this problem pretty well. The only
problem with it is that so far not many sites have signed up for it (which
kind of makes sense if you're the 800lb incumbent in your niche/market)

