
Twitter Stopped Letting New Users Pick Their Usernames During Sign-Up Years Ago - troberti
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2020/09/06/kazemi-twitter-usernames
======
tinus_hn
Makes sense not to reserve usernames for people who are just using the account
to follow and don’t tweet themselves.

This is a problem Twitch runs into, there are many more people watching than
streaming but everyone has an account name and can stream so a lot of names
are taken.

------
shannifin
Reduces sign-up friction I guess. Signing up for something and finding your
default usernames are already taken is always annoying.

~~~
Can_Not
Especially if that person registered your handle 3 weeks before you and didn't
login again for the next 15 years.

------
damieng
I was working at Xbox when we made the same change there. Web analytics were
showing a massive drop-off in signup as users struggled to think of a good
gamertag that wasn't already taken.

At the time you had to pay to change your gamertag so when we introduced this
you got a free change after it had generated one instead.

