A good, solid understanding of what an incredible PITA it is to support OpenID in a service-business web application like TekPub.

I caused this problem. I caused it because I'm making it too hard for the user to get into the sight - and that's really where the story ends for me. I don't care why, honestly. They don't have a problem with username/password - they need to use that for their Open ID provider anyway.

Boil this down from a User's perspective:

  • User wants to watch a Tekpub flick, so they come to our site
  • User has to login, our Open ID system kicks them over to their provider
  • They enter the username/password for that system
  • They come back and they watch their flick (if they've remembered correctly)
As a developer I'm happy about this because I'm not storing credentials (which is a solved problem as far as I'm concerned). As a business owner I'm wondering why we need 4 steps to happiness. They enter their username/password anyway? What's the damn difference?
-- Rob Conery

Go for the post, but stay for the crazy from Jeff Atwood in the comments:

What I said was here -- http://twitter.com/#!/codinghorror/status/5066600633860096 shrug. I just think selling software, with the exception of $0.99 and $2.99 type phone apps, is all but dead. I no longer believe in it even a little. And one -- just one -- of the reasons I don't believe in it, is because of exactly what you said. The weird whore/pimp dynamic it sets up. You gotta do what the customers say, right, because they're the ones paying you all the money?
-- Jeff Atwood

http://blog.wekeroad.com/thoughts/open-id-is-a-party-that-happened