Member-only story
It’s time to abandon verification codes in 2024
If we don’t need to solve the verification code, we can build 77,600 houses every year. But year after year, the verification code is still wasting our time and money. 2024 is a perfect year to completely get rid of the verification code.
Verification code and printer are the same thing
A few days ago, I completed some long-delayed tasks online. One of them was to cancel news subscriptions that were no longer needed. This was the last task of the day, and I only had 5 minutes left to complete it. I used the link provided in the email to go to the company website.
To unsubscribe, I need to log in to my account and check a checkbox to disable email subscriptions. In theory, this is a perfect task that can be completed in five minutes.
But on the login page, a verification code came towards me to verify that I was human. Because I was in a hurry, I quickly clicked on all the photos showing the sidewalk. Unfortunately, I missed one. So I started quickly clicking on the photos to complete this final task before the appointment to go to the dentist.
To my surprise, more and more photos appeared, and even though I kept clicking on the sidewalk, I still couldn’t pass the verification. Five minutes passed, and I had to give up.
This is almost like a printer, and the verification code seems to sense when you are in a hurry.
