I know this is a necessary evil, but dang I hate passwords. I also think this little thing called integration has literally sent most people into a tailspin! What is integration, you ask? Integration is when the businesses like Apple, Google, Netflix, and Microsoft integrate your accounts with apps, telephone, email, purchases, music, video, blah blah blah. Everytime I decide I want to add a subscription, some ink for my printer or cancel my damn TV satellite, I have to go through the complicated maze of integration.
Everyone, I am absolutely certain, is going through this pain in the ass part of technology. And unless you are extremely skilled at graphing, the flowchart, or are one of the sick humans that likes massive excel spreadsheets, there is NO WAY people are keeping track of where all their subscriptions live and who is charging for what. I believe this is the way they want it. I’m being charged for all sorts on things like satellite through my telephone company, Ink cartridges through my google account, hosting for my website is integrated through Microsoft and google, and low and behold, I pay for all of this shit through completely different accounts. The amount that Facebook is charging me, is coming through PayPal. Holy Shit, I’m lost. I just got an alert that Hulu charged me for another month … where the hell do I cancel that shit?
I know there is a lot of swearing today, but listen, my amazon prime account froze up on my TV last week, and you would not believe what we had to do, to get it going again. OMG. We wandered through the maze of integration, and if it weren’t for the vault of passwords that I possess for the over 200 different authentication processes that I need, I would still be looking at a frozen screen on my TV, that btw is associated with an account and had to be logged into. Ugh. Which leads me to my next point, I hate fucking passwords.
Every time you go through the maze, inevitably you will have to remember a password. Thank goodness for password vaults. It’s funny, all these security people tell you not to write down passwords. How in the SAM HELL are you supposed to remember all of these? One uppercase, one lowercase, one symbol, but not that symbol, one number, no actual words from the dictionary? Are you fucking kidding me? Oh my lord. I hate passwords, but damnit, they are a necessary evil. Well for now. Security is getting much more sophisticated with two and three factor authentication/verification and just another rung in the integration ladder.
Do I have a solution? Maybe. I need a developer (which I’m not) to develop an app for our phones (Come on Apple!) that is user friendly that develops an integration flowchart where everyone can keep track of where all of their subscriptions are, payments come from and membership fees are being charged. I’m positive the big guys out there are making some serious bank simply because I don’t know how to cancel my subscription to STARZ. That really fucking sucks. Calling all developers, can you help? Is there something out there? Can anyone help us joe schmoe users handle all of this integration? Is there any hope for us?
In the meantime, my suggestion to all of you out there, use a password vault. You can even use a note and lock it. The integration and password conventions are just going to get more complicated. Touch ID and Face ID have just added one more layer of memory loss. It will be a while before your TV or your desktop come with a thumbprint authentication or be able to scan your face, well at least in a version that’s affordable. For now, we deal with this unbelievably ridiculous maze of integration and fifty gazillion passwords.
My advice, fellow users, use a password vault, keep it up to date, and for god’s sake, back up the damned phone. Oh yeah, one more thing, don’t forget your phone password. lol