There's sort of a chicken and egg problem for us: the service has more utility for users the more integrating partners we have / the more people who are hooking into our API. And for developers, the service becomes more useful the more users we have (for the most part -- there are some value propositions for some sites where they get utility by pushing data to us, rather than just pulling).

We're working on addressing that by actively pitching to potential integrating partners. But essentially, DandyID is a platform for data portability for social sites. Using our API sites can let users sync their profile and identity graph information across multiple web sites.

We're also working on our user messaging. The "learn more" page on dandyid.org will be replaced soon with something more detailed explaining the benefits to users. :)

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EDIT: Looks like you added to your post while I was replying. :) To address your other points: Those are really good points, thanks for the feedback. I think the original ideas was not to allow non-users to utilize the API (guess on my part as I wasn't with the company when that decision was made), but perhaps that's a non-issue. Most developers will need to sign up to test what they're making anyway.

As for the other, it's a semantics issue. I guess "Get an API key" (which is what the API application form page actually says), would be better? APIs are granted automatically and instantly (a change we recently implemented)... except for cases when people want to push data back to us, then they need to be white listed on our end, so need to contact us.