Ask HN: Show logged in state on SaaS marketing site?
Some SaaS services ignore the logged-in state of the user on the not-the-product-itself marketing site. An example is MailChimp where I am shown 'Sign Up Free' and 'Log in' options when viewing https://mailchimp.com regardless of whether I have already logged in. I'm assuming this to be an intentional choice and not a bug as it has been that way for years.
Some SaaS services respect the logged-in state of the user on the marketing site (if logged_in display_account_link else display_sign_in_link) in addition to doing so within the product itself. I can't find any real-life examples of this other than for a service I am currently developing. Examples welcome if you know of any!
My questions:
Are there any best practices, from a user perspective of, of choosing one of the above options (never respect/always respect logged-in state on the marketing site) over the other?
I can see how never respecting the logged-in state on the marketing site has technical benefits with respect to something something complexity and something something security something something.
Do you find yourself confused when ending up at a given service's marketing site and thinking that you are not logged in when you thought you were?
I ask as the additional complexity and security aspects of respecting the logged-in state on the marketing site of a Saas product is something I have to deal with and think about from time to time.
When wearing my engineering hat I want to go with the MailChimp way of doing things. When wearing my UX hat I want to respect the logged-in state of the user at all times. Sometimes my hats argue between themselves.