Gradually, my days are filled up with passwords. From the log on screen on my Mac, to the special password for apple email so I can read all my email accounts in one desktop app, I am asked to confirm who I am. Funny how the news this morning was a new unconstitutional directive from the outlaw administration giving ICE ability to arrest anyone without due process. When was the last time you had to prove your citizenship? I had a mess up from my company that required me to validate I was a US citizen. It was not enough that I had 3 passports which had expired or drivers license. It was actually difficult when the requester is assuming you are not. It was something that you never expect to be questioned.
The daily frustrations of authenticaing who you are over and over again is similar. The assumption the app developers make is you are on some public computer with people looking over your back. The fact that you live alone and no one has used your computers for years is not a top scenario they code to. I went to sign into my mail app outlook. But before that, most people have to have a password manager app to create and remember proper passwords and to get to that app, requires at least one password that should be hard to guess and therefore, should be stored somewhere, and if that is another app that requires a password and god forbid and 2FA, you may need to find your phone to receive a code. By this time, you are 3 steps away from your first task and now you can’t remember what you were looking for.
This happens to me over and over each day. And just when you have had it with complex passwords and 2FA, Facebook or Twitter or Amazon loses all your information to theives and if you reuse the same password, many accounts could be in jeopardy.
I find myself just not using applications anymore. Unless it is really important, I won’t log into an app. If the autofill feature or faceid or fingerprint scans don’t do their jobs, which is often the case, I just walk away. the same with all the new apps. If they want me to create a new account, I don’t use it.
I am not sure this unproductive aspect of modern online communications is enough to cause a huge correction in tech stocks. I would think it could be if the media treated it in a particular way. Whipping up the herd to panic. ONe would think that if Russia attacking our infrastructure and hacking the power grids and voting machines was not enough to get peoples attention, anything could be brused off and ignored.