Not the person being asked, but unless it’s for work I just don’t use it. There’s more content online than I can ever consume and if it’s a tool I need for a side project I might as well build it myself since I work on side projects solely to keep my tech skills up

Edit: I do authenticate on several paid products, but I was always introduced to them in some hassle free manner, and only got to the point of paying and dealing with adding another app to deal with maintaining after I’ve grown to like the service

You’re authenticated here? What’s the difference?

Did it after years of lurking and finally feeling like it’s worth it. This was in response to the application in question requiring authentication from the get go.

Ultimately it’s laziness, but dealing with authentication is annoying and I can’t be assed to do it for something I’m not already valuing

Not just laziness but increased attack surface for compromised credentials. Just like physical things weigh us down (spring clean or donating old stuff is liberating) so too is having another login somewhere. I wish I knew all the sites I have logins too but I dont and its frustrating, risky and worrying.

I have two periods in my life. Before password manager and after password manager.

After I made the password manager a part of my routine that I trust absolutely that I never skip, all of that anxiety went away. I still have logins from the before times that I wish I could round up, but for the last ten or so years I can guarantee I know every site that I’ve signed up for.

That and data being sold, haveibeenpwned gives me a larger list as the years go on from all the “secure” services who werent.

I feel bad for people making new services now who have to deal with this, but the internet isn’t new and they have to overcome our experience with all the bad behavior of shysters who operated like these apps and ended up lying about the service

If I had to be logged in to view HN the very first time I arrived here, I wouldn’t have bothered.

(I'm not the person being asked.)

As of now, I log in only when needed, and usually to a single account at a time, at most two.

I am willing to try new models for web search if the provider does not log any information. I'll prefer it to be stateless (other than account settings and payments).