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Comment by CitrusFruits | Hacker News Reader

Yup, this is exactly right. Facebook was the last OAuth provider I added because I don't love being tied to them, but at the end of the day some people just want the easiest way to authenticate possible, and Facebook is one of the largest authentication providers available in the world.

And to put it into perspective, yes Facebook is able to collect information about you when you use them as an authentication provider (like when you log in, how often, how long your sessions are), but beyond that it's a pretty narrow interaction.

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Question: Does encouraging people to sign up with FB (bc it is faster/easier) also have the unwanted consequence of preventing them from leaving FB in the future? If they are signed up through to Slow Social via FB, can they still log in manually if their FB account has been deleted?

I see it as more of providing a false signal of adoption or success: if people need the friction to be as little as clicking a single button to "sign up" then they're not very convinced or committed to trying something new and likely not willing to invest time actually engaging with the system; all major platforms today used tricks or first mover mechanics for engagement to keep enough people on the platform long enough to make it sticky, rather than adding or creating or providing a wide breadth of usefulness/function to a wide variety of demographics - providing candy to the 80% at very low cost of ingredients vs. creating something of quality (product and service); dumb inflammatory sugary candy vs. quality nutrients that is trying to milk clicks and time engaging on a platform attempting to control and retain a user every moment.

A lot of human time is sacrificed to maintain passwords for different websites; having a one-click sign in option saves a lot of people the time and headache of having to deal with a compromised account or forgotten password years in the future.

Who you give the gatekeeping keys to has importance and value.

The only other option is passwordless webauthn which has a lot of downsides compared to social sign in. Allowing people to sign in with social is a personal choice that i'm happy many sites give the option of using.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be an option but we should be conscious of who we give that login data to and how they're use/benefit from it and then misuse or waste the value they extract from it; be conscious of who we reward with our actions.

It's really about reducing friction, not pumping up numbers. This is bootstrapped, not investor backed so there's no reason to skew the numbers.

As for the candy analogy, I think that's a bit cynical if all you're critiquing is the login system without looking at the actual application. Lots of quality applications provide login via Facebook: Spotify, Notion, Airbnb, etc. It has nothing to do with the actual apps itself, it's just the doorway.

Hey there. I didn't mean to insinuate that your intent was to do so - but I suppose the caution is to perhaps take that signal (# of signups) with at least a bit of a grain of salt; you likewise, as other commenters stated, could be turning off a set of demographics who want nothing to do with Facebook et al, and who may be your most passionated, motivated userbase you'd perhaps want to start off with. Pros and cons either way, it seems.

And to further clarify: I also wasn't criticizing your platform as part of my comment, I was referring to the status quo platforms - citing specifically all major platforms.

I do greatly appreciate anyone genuinely attempting to solve the problem - it's a very serious problem; obesity, literally, is a big problem in North America and growing globally (no pun intended) - and in big part is the capture of our information systems (including MSM/legacy media and platforms that have reached popularity and are ad funded/driven) by industrial complexes; with a sprinkling of foreign interests and bad actors interfering.

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