RANT WARNING: freakin' stupid login to buy crap

[HerbertTarkel]

I use PayPal all the time if I can, mostly because of the dispute system. Especially if I feel in any way the thing I’m buying from is on a new website. PayPal is good for that.

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Wow. Yeah, agreed - a pdf that gets passed around vs app bs makes no sense. You WILL lose more to a crappy app vs a common format pdf.

I do understand the point they made (and that they’re a business) but I just think it’s a fallacy (people that steal don’t tend to change just because it got slightly harder - challenge builds character  ). I’d imagine a large number of their target audience are older and/or (like me) probably just don’t want to be faffing with another system. I’d download issues to pass the time being stuck in bed/waiting in hospital/medical stuff and the magazine really helped to distract me from all of that. The new reader does not like my iPad and I gave up two minutes into the first issue they put up there. Previously when downloaded to an iPad it would automatically shove it into Books anyway which wouldn’t let you do anything but read it - I just feel they went the easy route on the advice of some expert rather than calm, rational common sense. It looks like WS&S will be being investigated - thank you for the tip.

Cathartic rant over, thank you all for your patience (I’m also annoyed by what the OP was, just trying to limit my frustrations to one thing at a time).

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[Elbows]

While I endorse the OP's frustrations (and I'm not particularly old...but already 'done' when it comes to 'accounts')...I think what you're seeing is the classic professor conundrum.

When in college (or university/uni for some of you), I always found my professors issuing work/reading/assignments in a vacuum - as if unaware we had 4-5 other courses doing the same.

I think every company thinks "what's the big deal, just give us your email address..." and in a vacuum it can seem harmless/reasonable, until you realize that people today have 100-120+ accounts on various websites.  And we know what that email address is being used for (farming/selling your data), etc.

When I do need an account, I have set up a spare email address expressly for garbage website accounts.  I never log in to that email unless I need to verify something, I just leave it alone...it probably gets tons of emails/spam/advertisements, etc.  I log in once every 3-4 months and just delete all the emails and then log back out.    Having a disposable email address has been exceptionally useful.

[Mikai]

Alternative is to have pseudo-mail-adresses which all end in the same email account. My main mail adress is not shared, just submail adresses. Can create and delete them as I like.

[boneio]

I build ecommerce sites for a living.

My advice to clients is always to enable guest checkout (i.e. don't require account creation) unless they feel they're making too much money and would like to make less 

Slightly less facetiously, the tradeoff companies are making is - if they require an account for checkout purposes then they can (arguably, that's another story) market to those accounts, and that marketing will bring in more custom than they lose through people deciding to shop elsewhere rather than create an account (or create a 'fake' account as Elbows wisely suggests  ).

There's no right or wrong answer, in some cases the demographic is such that it's worth mandating account creation. My position is that in most cases, customer choice is preferable, better for the brand, etc etc.

[Mallo]

I've often used fake gmail accounts to get free rules downloads that I've needed, such as when I've brought MDF terrain only to find I've had to then sign up to get the a PDF to get the build instructions  I really hate this! 

Just slam in anything like fake street, fake town fakesville and faker@gmail.com and generally it goes though so you can get to the download link. Some stores will force you to sign up properly which requires real registration and acknowledgement emails to use, you can then of course use a burner gmail account or use a email generator to complete this if you have no intention of using that store again. 

But its good to have a burner gmail account to sign up to all these stores anyway, so many smaller 'cottage' industry store fronts are likely to get scraped for your info and you find yourself targeted for spam. Its not always their fault, its an issue of being small fry and trying to keep costs down.

Look at how many wargaming companies lost their sites just a year ago because a single server went down, when the webhost chap went off for his retirement round-the-world cruise. It was pandemonium and they lost their livelyhoods for a small mistake. With no backups etc, it wouldn't take much for a security incident to cause as much of a problem!

[Ben Waterhouse]

I just had to - once again - "login in to account" to make a single item $7 US purchase.  That is so freaking stupid!!!  Way too many sites require this.  Why?  I make a purchase now and not again for three years or ten years even - who the hell bothers to remember passwords for something like that.  Someone needs to fix this.  And, yeah, I know, some "shopping carts" are at fault but it still PISSES ME OFF every time.  STOP this madness, please.  Fix it.  Permanently.

Rant over.

You think that's bad? What if you never want to go near PayPal ever again in your life after they refused to sort out a scam that took money out of an account three times. Your basically stuffed if you want to buy from small companies in our hobby.

[HerbertTarkel]

You think that's bad? What if you never want to go near PayPal ever again in your life after they refused to sort out a scam that took money out of an account three times. Your basically stuffed if you want to buy from small companies in our hobby.

Literally never had a problem with PayPal. Use them whenever I can.

[Elbows]

While I haven't...I know plenty of people who have had serious issues with PayPal.  It's more a matter of when, not if, unfortunately.

[HerbertTarkel]

While I haven't...I know plenty of people who have had serious issues with PayPal.  It's more a matter of when, not if, unfortunately.

Interesting. I guess I don’t use them for huge amounts, more the smaller places that I have that spidey-sense tingle that something might go wonky.

My credit card always has been good for issues, otherwise, just sometimes takes more work to deal with call centres.

[Dolnikan]

As far as I know, accounts come with several advantages for businesses. It helps them gather data (like knowing what else a customer is interested in) and it makes things like building mailing lists easier. That, and many standard platforms come with that bit built in. Theoretically, they can also save payment details to make checkout faster for repeat customers.

As normal people however, we are flooded with spam from leaked addresses and tend have hundreds of accounts that are impossible to keep track off. And I definitely don't want anything payment related stored by any random site. That too is a recipe for disaster. So I use a burner address for all of these accounts, all with the same password because I can't be bothered to remember it and I make sure nothing important is saved there anyways.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

On the subject of leaked PDFs vs proprietary apps, way back in Malifaux version 2 when you bought the starter set you had to send a photo of your physical receipt to Wyrd and they sent you a link to down the full rulebook PDF - with a watermark of your emai address.

Not fool proof but at least you did not have to get some clod-hopping data miner to read the rules.

[Elbows]

I went to a local retailer the other day (sadly for non-wargaming materials), and they stopped posting prices...asking you to download their app to scan stuff yourself.  Good luck with that...

[Inkpaduta]

The one that has killed me is Old Glory. I try to buy something and it says I
have to log into my account. I don't have one. So I try to create one.
Then it tells me that I already have an account and must use it! I don't have an account!!!

[Mallo]

I went to a local retailer the other day (sadly for non-wargaming materials), and they stopped posting prices...asking you to download their app to scan stuff yourself.  Good luck with that...

I'd call them from inside the store and ask them to tell me the price of an item. Not the store workers fault I know, but this sort of junk is ridiculous. If they get sick of people calling in and asking for prices then they can take it to the management.