Hacker News Reader

But now the onus is on other people to create a name for everyone they might interact with regularly. So instead of each person creating one name to denote themselves, each person is now creating multiple names to denote everyone else.

And I don't really see how this is functionally any different to adding digits to the end of your normal username.

View on HN

In Steam it is actually the case that a user can select their own display name (distinct from the account name used to log in) and change it at any time (and there's very few restrictions on what you can set it to, the system doesn't care if every single one of your friends has the same display name).

This function is separate from the "tagging" feature, which is helpful for keeping track of those friends who frequently change their display names and avatars. It's also possible to view the list of previous display names a given user has had, at least if you're friends with them.

If you're referring to the tagging on Steam, it's in addition to the regularly displayed username. If you're not, I guess I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com