The whole idea of passwords has really started to bug me lately. It's hard to pin down exactly why. They just seem to easy to choose poorly, too easy to forget, too easy to scam out of ignorant users. Just getting into someone's email gives you access to every password protected site they visit, and people often don't think too hard about email security. I've often declined to register for a site simply because I don't want to go through the trouble of thinking up a new username/password (even if you reuse them, it's still a chore), or declined to go back to a site because I've forgotten my password and don't want to go through the trouble of resetting it.
I've been trying to figure out an alternative to the whole username/password system for a long time now. Openid is the closest thing I've found to a solution. However, it comes with problems of its own. I didn't understand the documentation for the lisp implementation, so I went with a nodejs gateway, which complicates of the project. Also, openid is really only designed for websites. The user needs to have a browser to access the vast majority of implementations, and I can imagine some contexts where one is not readily availible.
Am I the only one frustrated by this?