Comment by yeukhon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yeukhon | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> I don't want to sign in with Facebook full stop. I really agree that you shouldn't force people to use a third party service to sign in.

You and parent are both thinking that it is Facebook's fault that third-party service providers are offering FB login.

Is it FB's fault that your favorite website is only accepting user comments unless you login with a FB account? No!

FB has done its good part. I am not here to argue with you or anyone about whether FB is respecting users' privacy and security demand. But now FB gives developers a new login option so that a site can allow users to do something like leaving a blog comment without revealing personal information such as name to the website. FB has done its good part as a platform.

If your website only offers facebook as the only option, that is not FB's fault. Should a website offer more login options? Why are services related to programming and source code usually come with a twitter or github login option instead of facebook? Because nowadays programmers tend to have a Github (or Bitbucket) account.

So why so much negativity around this new feature?

I don't think we're missing the point. We are not necessarily arguing that developers should not use it. We are hoping they choose not to use the platform _exclusively_ or as a substitute for their own login.

To use an analogy: we have small cars and someone is trying to sell us a big car. We're saying: 'What's the point?' because our desire and needs are already met by something else we have in mind. We see the product as missing a feature or not adding anything extra to the table. Think of it like wanting a mail provider that offers POP but not IMAP. I want one that uses IMAP - am I wrong?

I do not see this as negativity: it's just healthy disagreement. Otherwise every comment here would look the same.

It is unfortunate that the product we're talking about is offered as an alternative to the real thing (Facebook Connect) and it is what a developer would consider using to avoid writing their own login system. The offering does not meet our needs.

izzydata isn't just saying that he doesn't want a big car. He's saying that there's no point in buying a big car no matter what: "If you use facebook login for your site then you are shooting yourself in the foot if you care about users."

See the original parent's first sentence:

What is the point of this? I don't want to have to login with facebook at all. .

and then his reply,

Then use one of the other implementations. The problem is it being facebook, not the concept.

It's basically anti-Facebook login sentiment to me. Fine, I respect that. But,

If you use facebook login for your site then you are shooting yourself in the foot if you care about users.

You can't shoot yourself in the foot if your audience of your service can choose. As I said before, people who only offer FB as a login/sign up option is not FB's fault. In fact, any websites that don't offer the vanilla username/passwrod signup & login mechanism isn't FB's fault. So don't mix that issue in any discussion related to FB's new login mode here.

Now moving to yours:

We are hoping they choose not to use the platform _exclusively_ or as a substitute for their own login.

I will take it as you don't want to use any website not providing the vanilla username/password signup-login, right?

So again this has NOTHING to do with FB and its news announcement.

the product we're talking about is offered as an alternative to the real thing (Facebook Connect) and it is what a developer would consider using to avoid writing their own login system.

I am confused here. Do you like FB connect and like it over anyone's custom login system?

What exactly do you and parent want from Facebook's login and from app developers?

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