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Comment by arsalanb | Hacker News Reader

I'm currently working on a project which has only social login (but allows you to choose between facebook and google) and this was a very deliberate move. For any given person on this planet, there is a higher chance that they use facebook or gmail over any other "service", so no need to offer support for 10 different social logins.

Also, this is more about imposing a qualitative filter on the users who sign up. If the earliest users you have don't like you enough to give you their social login details (assuming, of course, you don't do something silly that poses a security threat) then do they really like you enough?

I like to think of my earliest users as "apostles" (I even call them that. Not to their face, but yeah) and they should have a bit of faith in the service. If they don't, then they are not really apostles after all.

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“If the earliest users you have don't like you enough to give you their social login details ”

Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but if there is no regular email sign-up, I’m not using your product, period.

There’s enough information floating around about me in databases all over the world, I don’t need them to be further connected and linked.

To see the situation with FB/CA and then demand your users use their login is insulting to me.

I agree with this because the scopes that the various apps "require" are usually way beyond what is actually necessary. At best, it's ugly information leakage. At worst, you spam my friends & colleagues to visit my farm.

* There's another aspect where if Google, Facebook, etc, etc shut down or freeze your account, you will lose access to the system.

Same here. The recent examples of people finding it difficult to delete Facebook because of social logins to accounts on other sites reinforces how social logins lock you into a service.

I built the log-in before the FB/CA situation and am yet to understand how it may change things. However, I personally think people will move on from this like nothing ever happened (which is sad)

> I personally think people will move on from this like nothing ever happened (which is sad)

Does that include you?

You could add the usual email login, or go further and prevent new Facebook logins, or remove it completely.

If you think it's sad, wouldn't you better off trying to change things? It's becomes more tempting to just move on if you have more services reliant on/tied to those accounts.

same. I lost my gmail account due to travelling around and my security question was nonsense with a nonsense answer as I knew I would never forget my password.

Eventually I got back into the account after a few months, since then I never rely on a google account for anything.

Similarly, I don't use facebook.

As for my data: 100% email login (I don't allow social logins)

Same here. If Google or FB are the only ways to sign up I'll pass.

It bothers me (in a philosophical way) that everything is being tied back to the 2 or 3 biggest walled garden providers, further centralizing control.

I wish there was like an open standard that apps could implement, and the users could choose to log in with any provider that implemented the standard (maybe this exists already?). I'd go for that.

I will never use your product or service, if it only allows "social login."

If it's an app that requires ANY sign-up to begin using it, I will uninstall it, unless I feel it offers a tremendous value to me.

Same. And I hold grudges. Lyft and Spotify used to require Facebook logins, and even though they have since removed the requirement, I still feel negatively towards them for it and don’t use them to this day.

That's it exactly, he only wants people that finds his service of tremendous value. I think it makes sense as a way to deter casual sign ups.

>>[if they won’t use social login do they really like you enough? I like to think of my users as apostles]

Sounds a bit scary is this some kind of cult as a service offering?

It’s well known that a significant percentage of people won’t sign up with a social login. What is it about those lost users that appears to assign them less of a value in your business model?

Quality of customer is definitely a consideration in certain cases, for example some businesses have been more successful after raising prices.

However in this case I don’t see the benefit unless maybe there’s some kind of inherent need to verify identity or something along those lines which doesn’t seem to truly be a significant requirement in that many cases.

How is it "well known that a significant percentage of people won't sign up with a social login" ?

It's hard to prove that something is 'well-known' but I thought it too, and the reported stats in this post seem to confirm it.

If anything an Email/Password is more of a hassle and a better filter for "apostles" than one-click facebook/google.

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