Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Online accounts
Raised as a usability problem by 20 people on Hacker News over 15 years (2012–2026), in 20 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Changing email or deleting accounts seems impossible without supportUnreviewed
20122026- Changing email on many sites is painful, some offer no way to delete accounts2026-03-20
- Some businesses make changing email or deleting accounts seem impossible, forcing escalation to support2019-08-31
- Losing access to an email account cascades into losing many linked accounts2019-03-26
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 20 complaints
- Has to repeatedly confirm email on every signup or login, even after already signing up2026-04-12
- Changing email on many sites is painful, some offer no way to delete accounts2026-03-20
- Users are pushed to hand over personal data after investing time, making leaving feel costly2024-02-15
- A Sign in with Google popup appears and must be closed before continuing2023-07-02
- Sites demand a cell phone number and block VoIP numbers, so people must get burner phones2022-12-28
- Valid long-TLD email addresses rejected at signup, sign-in and checkout2022-03-16
- Marketing opt-out comes late in sign-up, and new marketing categories must be unticked repeatedly2022-03-06
- Creating or logging into accounts is a nightmare for people with common names or shared emails2022-02-08
- Must update address separately with every service after moving2021-02-06
- Systems reject multi-part last names or mangle legal names into wrong fields2019-11-09
- Companies lack a way for non-customers to report wrongly registered accounts2019-10-16
- Some businesses make changing email or deleting accounts seem impossible, forcing escalation to support2019-08-31
- SMS-based 2FA fallback is nearly impossible to turn off2019-08-08
- Losing access to an email account cascades into losing many linked accounts2019-03-26
- Logging in to see a resource takes a painful series of steps2017-03-22
- Users must sign up for and remember separate accounts and passwords for every service2017-02-28
- No easy way to stop emails for accounts someone else created with your address2013-11-10
- Must fax license repeatedly, scan statements, and wait 48 hours for review2013-08-21
- Must wait for activation email, then delete account and unsubscribe from later emails2013-03-20
- Sign-up requires repeated retries from CAPTCHAs, username clashes, and password rule mismatches2012-07-13