I’m seriously irritated. I clicked over to one of my favorite “nothing fancy to look at but great information” web sites. Oh! Nice redesign! But where’s that link to … ohhh nooooo, not again!
Another site converted from public content to being forever locked away from my prying eyes unless I want to register for another membership and add another username and password to my already over-populated password storage program. GRRRRR!!!
Oh cool! They added an online store … but what’s the big secret? What are they selling that you can’t see unless you’re a member?
Ho-boy! Another free newsletter. I’m soooo tired of the gimmicks and teasers and I don’t have the time to read all the free newsletters I already get. What am I going to do with another one? If I want to see advertisements, I can turn on the tv. Used to be I could get away from all that by getting on the Internet. As much as I like the site, I don’t like all that I have to do in order to use it.
There seems to be more sites requiring a login than those that don’t. I can’t even count the number of web sites I have really wanted some information from so I became a member and I have that all important login. After jumping through all these hoops just to read something I found I’ve been 1) totally disatisfied with what I found after I finally got in and 2) baffled as to why I would need to login to this site because I found absolutely nothing here that couldn’t be put in plain view for anyone to read.
Think!!! BEFORE You Require!!!
There are times when requiring an account and login is absolutely necesssary like your banking and credit card accounts for example. Depending on what it is, having an account and login might be a necessity and you wouldn’t want it any other way. For security reasons, you’re never supposed to use the same login more than once, so for each site you visit that requires a logon, you’re supposed to have a different login. Eventually, you’ll need a notebook the size of Webster’s dictionary in order to hold all your logins.
There are obviously quite valid reasons to require a login option, but I’m seriously beginning to believe that some site owners just think it looks cool to own a web site that requires people to login or maybe it makes them feel important? Are they maybe paranoid that people will steal their content? I don’t really know why so many take this step, but it’s already well past the point of being ridiculous to have to log in to so many sites when there is no valid reason to require people to do this.
If you’re going to require a membership and/or login to your site, think first about the purpose for it. If it’s necesssary, then ok, it’s just another one of the steps site visitors will need to take to access your site. If you really don’t need it, if you just think it looks cool, if you feel more important owning a site that forces people to login to see what you’re all about … you might want to ask yourself if feeling important is worth all the people you just might be turning off and sending away if the reason(s) you’re requiring a login aren’t valid or necessary.