I'm surprised that 37signal's thought process is so utterly flawed. Blaming a technology for implementation problems just doesn't make sense. Using this logic, we would have concluded in 1997 that since Geocities pages were ugly and slow, HTTP was a waste of time.
StackOverflow demonstrates aptly that OpenID is a technology that can work really well. You just need to:
- Funnel users to pervasive, competent providers like Google, Facebook, Verisign
- Make the integration experience as smooth as possible.
If your implementation of OpenID requires users to enter URLs and encourages users to use random providers, than yes, it sucks.
Really? Because yesterday I went to Meta StackOverflow and was utterly confused why I was getting new openid requests. (It was because MetaSO is different that SO.) Then I went to SO and was still confused because I thought I used yahoo but actually used google. Then, after I logged in with yahoo, I tried to change from google to yahoo and ended up with both, and now I can't remove the google openid. Very confusing.
Instead of managing 1 SO and 1 MetaSO login, I'm managing a connection from SO to one of many providers and MetaSO to one of many providers. Best case, that's 3 pages (SO, MetaSO and Yahoo) to manage logins to 2 sites.
StackOverflow demonstrates aptly that OpenID is a technology that can work really well. You just need to: - Funnel users to pervasive, competent providers like Google, Facebook, Verisign - Make the integration experience as smooth as possible.
If your implementation of OpenID requires users to enter URLs and encourages users to use random providers, than yes, it sucks.