Stop making me log in to everything

The internet now happens behind closed doors.

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

Related reading.— Kate

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Authors just lost to Meta when it comes to AI ownership. The real problem is what it could mean for the rest of us:

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Whenever I go to Google something on my phone (recent searches: the name of the ex girlfriend of a friend’s situationship, “mexico outlet plug,” and “whats wrong with Halo Top”), my mobile browser prompts me to “Try more ways to search in the Google app.” I’m presented with two options, but there’s only one they put in a blue button, and that’s “continue.” Continue, one would assume, with what I’m already doing, which is getting the identical experience in a mobile browser. Unless, of course, you read the other option, the one in a white button that blends into the background: “Stay in browser.” It’s only the existence of “stay in browser” that defines what “continue” actually means in this context, but it’s already too late. I am stupid, the “continue” button is blue, and this is all on purpose.

Not only do I now find myself in the App Store, but I am UNABLE to return to the browser page I was on without being immediately forced off again. By pressing “continue,” that tab has been sentenced to an infinite loop of sending me back to the App Store. The only way to stop this from happening is to quickly close the tab entirely before it can boot you off again. I’m always so angry about this that, even if I would have downloaded the app, I won’t now.

I have similar experiences everywhere online now. You can hardly access anything without logging in, and if you can access the reddit thread or article or what have you, you will be prompted to open or download the app, which will then require you to log in. As someone who deleted their Twitter and Facebook accounts, I can no longer view even a public profile in its entirety. If I want to watch a TikTok on my browser (because I’m on my laptop or trying to get the link), I have to navigate the worst UX imaginable. These platforms will allow you to see something without logging in—Twitter, for instance, will show you a user’s most popular posts—but their message to casual browsers is clear with every App Store pop up and tedious design choice: We fucking hate you.

Of course, sensitive information should be password protected, and it makes sense to plant your flag by building a profile on a platform you use often. Still, I fear we have lost the plot. I have to download a new, never-before-heard-of app any time I want to access my ticket to attend a concert. My sister got permanently locked out of her Hatch and had to buy a new one because she switched her WiFi modem. I once was lost on a hike with limited service and could only access the map that would get me to safety by downloading AllTrails. You can get logged out of your toothbrush.

The sheer number of usernames and passwords life now requires can only be managed with a password manager, which I have the privilege of paying $35 a year for. That, of course, requires a password, too. But no matter how hard you try to stay on top of them, there will be a day when you find yourself trying to pick up a package at an Amazon Locker, the pin for which you can only view in the app. So you download the app but cannot remember your login info because your computer has just been auto-completing it for the past four years. You request a new password. That password gets sent to your Gmail, which you cannot access, because Google requires you to resubmit your login every few weeks. You go to your password manager to get that login, only to get hit with two-factor authentication. Open your YouTube app, Gmail tells you, and click “yes” to confirm it’s you. You open YouTube. You’re logged out.

This is not a hypothetical worst-case scenario, but something that happened to me when I was trying to pick up a replacement part for my dishwasher.