Why should we let "the average web user" hold everyone else back?
You might I'm being purposely difficult -- and maybe I am.
I'm not, but I agree that you are. Sometimes times change. You are probably one of the people that adds that "Stop HTML Email" ribbon to your mail signature because the first mainframe you used didn't let you send formatted email. It's not 1960 anymore.
Hold everyone back from what? Technology for technology sake? Why do all this? For security? So nobody can hack into my flickr and look at my pictures of my kittens? For convenience? I have to sign up to some completely unrelated service so I can login to your site?
The average web user isn't going to give a crap, and honestly neither do I. And I generally love technology for technology sake.
And don't get me started on how horrible HTML email is... ;)
Your Flickr account security probably matters to you a lot more than you think. Plenty of people thought the security on their Facebook accounts "didn't really matter", then 4chan got hold of a bunch and used them to totally destroy people's reputations with their real-life friends: http://thecoffeedesk.com/news/index.php/2009/08/22/4chan-hac...
You have to sign up for some completely unrelated service to receive the "validate your email" link. So OpenID is nothing new in this respect; you have always had to have an unrelated service to sign up for websites.
The point now is that every site you visit doesn't have to have your password and email.
A lot of Web 2.0 sites don't even bother validating your email anymore -- such as hackernews, reddit, etc. They have a username and password that isn't connected to anything. That works for me.
And I don't have to signup for some completely unrelated service to receive an email -- everybody already has email.
You might I'm being purposely difficult -- and maybe I am.
I'm not, but I agree that you are. Sometimes times change. You are probably one of the people that adds that "Stop HTML Email" ribbon to your mail signature because the first mainframe you used didn't let you send formatted email. It's not 1960 anymore.