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It's indeed interesting the number of people misspelling their email address, or having an inbox so full that it cannot receive emails anymore.

I never tried to add magix links, but I added Google Sign in to my SaaS several month ago, and since then, it accounts for more than 90% of new sign-ups (users are devs, so rather tech savvy and privacy aware). I'm now convinced that no other method is a priority (I still have email/password of course).



> but I added Google Sign in to my SaaS several month ago, and since then, it accounts for more than 90% of new sign-ups (users are devs, so rather tech savvy

I do it for services I don't care about. In my mind it is more privacy for me. Keeps you out of my real inbox and my password out of your system and I believe that I can - to some extend - remove myself without having to go through whatever crap account deletion process that services has tried to cobble together.

Worst offenders let me login with google and then immediately asks for name and phone number or email and asks me to verify it.


> my password out of your system

This shouldn't be a factor because your password should be a random series of characters that are unique to that site.

> I believe that I can - to some extend - remove myself without having to go through whatever crap account deletion process that services has tried to cobble together.

To an absolute minimal extent: you can make it so Google won't tell them whatever it was they already told them again. But you can't make them delete the data that they already lifted from your Google account.

For keeping surfaces out of your inbox, that's what email aliases are really good for. Register with an alias and then block that alias if they abuse it.


Wouldn't privacy aware users prefer passkeys or passwords, instead of any kind of SSO?

In general, I do understand that use of SSO is due to convenience. Especially since in many cases websites provide less friction when signing up via SSO instead of using username+password.


Believe it or not, most users are not that privacy cautious


That would be my guess too. I think convenience always win.


I have my HN username at a venerable webmail service. I check it about once a year, tops. My name isn't unimaginably rare, but neither is it "Smith".

I am shocked, shocked, by the number of different K. Strauser people who have typed that email address into some random website or another. I've gotten bank notifications, loan documents, Facebook signup info, meeting minutes from some random volunteer work, and all kinds of other things. When I can figure out from context who the intended recipient is, I try to let them know so they can fix it. On one occasion, the person sent me back a swear-laden diatribe for "hacking their email". Sigh.

I think this has made me a better engineer, though. When someone says something in a meeting like "...as long as they type their email correctly", I can jump in and address that myth head-on. No, people will not type it correctly. If it's a minor pain in the neck for me, with an uncommon name, I can only imagine the traffic that the world's John Smith's get.


Same issue. I've had university professors put my email address in their sylabus instead of ____.edu, and been carpet bombed by assignments, excuses, and pleading diatribes.

I'm listed as the email address for _many_ utility bills, doctors offices, and more political campaigns than I can count.

Comical how many people mess up their own email address.


I just don't get it. A legitimate typo I can see, sure, but so many of the things I get looks like someone said "email address? I guess I can just pick one!"


The number of support requests I got last year because of [hotmail|gmail|msn|yahoo].con > 30


I just auto switch any incoming .con to .com on the back end. 100% of the time it is a user typo


Nice trick! I check on the frontend for all gmal, gmial, etc variations :)


> I check on the frontend

This is the way. The user can benefit from feedback that they got something wrong, in addition to a helping hand.


Just a very small detail, but want to point out the distinction between these two comments. "Revicon" is demonstrating 10x thinking, it's not about being better at rewriting a linked list algorithm or some leetcode challenge.

Player 1 gets the same support request over and over, does nothing about it, ("hey, that's what the user entered, they should be more careful!"), complains about it online, and who knows how many hours are wasted in the back and forth with the customers.

Player 2 simply makes the necessary change on the backend, the users don't even realize they made a typo, totally seamless flow.

Hat tip to you. Hope you screenshot these two comments and bring this up in every interview to exemplify the contrast between "technically correct" and high-efficiency problem solving.


A tasteful post and distinction well highlighted. Humorously, Yvo Schaap is no stranger to 10x thinking. For one thing, Yvo publishes diagrams on SaaS/dev topics that always seem consistently way ahead of their time in terms of their organization and completeness.


A couple of years ago I think I saw a frontend library that warned the user / auto-fixed those typos, but I can't remember its name, and all I can find now are SaaS offers for that kind of service.

Which I'm not entirely enthusiastic about as it leaks all user emails to some random service.




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