fuck marry kill: usernames, email, and internet handle

First off, let me say that the first time I read about internet handle I was like "fuck yeah, I love this" ... now that I am building Login and Signup screens I want to pull my hair out whenever I come across the term "internet handle"...

here is why:

The majority of internet users are familiar with email or username/handle.

Adding "internet" before handle, does not make it easy or intuitive for what you are looking at or what this means.

Yes, it def is clear to someone like us who knows about internet handle but there are billions of people who are completely new to bluesky/atproto so the first time they see internet handle they have to be educated about WTF it is.. this adds friction for newcomers and people will drop off in your onboarding flow.. you should be highly conscious about this choice!

If your entire app is targeted for people WHO ARE familiar with internet handle then great, you should see your userbase to be the one of bsky (currently up to 43m users, but even here not all of the 43m users are educated about internet handle) - if you are trying to build something that is inclusive for people who dont know wtf bsky/atproto is - then you have made it more difficult for those people to get started with your app/service.

internet handle is dead, long live internet handle

The objective of internet handle is for a person to log into a site or app. It works, but you could also just call this handle without adding internet in front of it, and it would work the exact same way.

Why would I fuck usernames/handle and marry email? It is simple: Email is the first real auth method used for websites and therefore it is the most used login auth method that almost (if not all) generations are familiar with (this may not be 100% factual but you get my idea).

If someone comes across a login screen, and they see email, they know wtf is going on. I dont need to educate them about internet handle.

OAuth is the long term game

OAuth already supports your internet handle AND your email. So lets skip this whole internet handle thing and use the email from the start in your Oauth.

Oauth has its own issues, the UX and branding is very questionable and I would prefer Oauth to take a design/language direction towards SIWG/SIWA.

Why usernames are sub optimal

Look at Discord. They had @username#1234 which was hell and a nightmare for many reasons, thankfully they have changed course and now you have one username or call it handle.

Usernames, gamertags, handles - these are all familiar to us youngsters but they are less inclusive to older generations who are more familiar with email auth. Think of your mum or grandma, will they know Username (or handle) when they signed up for service no:456789 in their lifetime? Or will they be able to have a simpler time to login when they see an email field? For me the answer is clear.

If you decide to present handle on your login page you might end up showing a domain preview:

As seen here from kitch.io. (I love kitch, no hate)

Now when a new user sees this screen they see a DNS URL. This is STILL a NEW EXPERIENCE. It requires you to educate the user, which kitch is doing in the info button. But all of this adds friction to new users. This is a sub-optimal user journey.

Email for the win

I see email as the best and simplest way to communicate how to login.

On another note:

Accounts are the best term to describe what a PDS is for a user. See it as the Apple ID Account that comes with 5GB of iCloud storage. Your PDS comes with cloud storage (lots of it, thx bdaddy).

One-click accounts

Remember when A**zon invented the one-click checkout? Such wow, much revolution, many innovation.

What if we had one-click accounts, so you land on kitch.io press one button and you are inside the dashboard ready to add your cucumbers and tomatoes to your list.

It is certainly possible, the PDS would have to pre-assign a placeholder value for the username/handle, email and password. And throughout the onboarding experience of kitch, the user would be stopped to finalize their account where they add their real handle/username/password to update the PDS records of their accounts for which the PDS has already listed cucumber and tomatoes data.

If you are curious how I am handling atproto auth I recommend you to create a new account on linkna.me/signup to experience how a simplified version of auth can look like (sure, its not the most secure way, oauth is def more secure - but this is the simplest way to login a user without having to educate them up front).

Thank you for attending my ted talk about why I would marry Email.