Emails can be simple - mine is $firstName@$lastName.me Tbh phone numbers are quite long and if people can't remember 4 digital pin... Still you can generate qr code mailto: links
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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I don't want to treat phone numbers as an ID, but for some reason my customers will give their phone number to me online far more willingly than they'll cough up their email address, which is baffling only until you realize:
- Most people are technologically incompetent and are intimidated by the avalanche of crap they get in their email, and
- They never answer their phones anyway, so who cares?
I actually offer the option, because I don't give a rat's ass how people ignore me when I try to contact them. But when they place an order I at least need to be able to prove that I tried.
When I give out my email, I always get spam, regardless of how many boxes I uncheck.
When I give out my phone number, sometimes I don’t
Of course that no longer makes sense since I have one phone number I can’t easily change, but give out uniquely generated emails that I can individually turn off
which is baffling only until you realize
I stopped being baffled when I realized most people are dumb as shit.
It's just a fact of life, and we either see it or we don't.
TBF many people are more intimidated by emails. My mum, for example, is in her 70s - she's okay with using a smartphone but she doesn't trust 'internet stuff'. Won't put her card details in, doesn't trust emails - which is fair, because a lot of emails are bullshit or scams. She grew up with telephones though and feels safer using them. Possibly why so many phone scams target older people. I've tried to educate her.
This attitude doesn't make people dumb. A bit ignorant, maybe, but I feel like 'dumb as shit' is a bit harsh.
Yo sign me up 867-5309
Jenny, what is your area code?
On this question of verification, I don’t have a particularly foolproof solution, but maybe there just isn’t one.
I can criticize the modern web for a lot of things, but as long as we have situations where we want to check whether an account is a real person, as opposed to FarmingBot #295038, they need something. I'm not a fan of phone verification, but I'd only criticize it when we have alternatives.
I'd even be in favor of some kind of one-way algorithm by which a trusted real-person-identifying entity could tell a random third party site: Yes, this is a genuine human.
https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/en/id-austria.html
That exists and is better than a phone number.
Cool, now provide solutions that exist today for every other country
That is not my responsibility ;) I just shared that something like that exists.
The technology has existed since the 80s.
X509 certificates would allow a government agency to sign a digital identity indicating that it's legitimate, would allow for remote revocation in the event of loss or theft, and can be easily integrated with every existing computer and browser.
An issued physical card would resemble a credit card, with a chip in it. Other physical form factors can take the shape of USB-devices which bundle the card and the reader into a single device.
In the real world:
Also https://www.cac.mil/Common-Access-Card/, if the Americans are skeptical.
I don't like the Austrian one being phone-integrated, but I understand why people would want that.
It's because the phone is a two-factor token that everyone has with them. With a secure processor being the hardware token and fingerprints or face scans biometrics. This makes it ideal for saving such sensitive data. I most frequently use it to digitally sign documents in a legally enforceable way.
The card you linked is similar, and a smart card was one of the previous versions of our system. The goal here was to make it universally accessible, and a smartphone is perfect for that.
Internet security and internet privacy are only incompatible goals when combined with incompetency and shit user-exerience design.
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