Ask HN: Do you practice online minimalism? How?

1 points by minimalismhuh 5 years ago | 3 comments

It occurs to me that you have to have a lot of online accounts for various things and purposes. I am sure you have at least a couple of these accounts:

Gmail, Outlook, Protonmail, Tutanota, GitHub, Dropbox, Standard Notes, FC2, Amazon, iTunes, GOG.com, Steam, itch.io, Twitter, YouTube, FC2, HN, Stack Overflow, Discord, Linkedin, Netflix, Spotify, Mubi, Grammarly, eBay, Bitwarden, SimpleLogin.io, Firefox Relay, Firefox Lockwise, ...

Furthermore, the incentive to have even more accounts is growing as more and more services are entering the online market.

Here's a data point serving as a primer:

"In the U.S. the average email address is associated with 130 accounts."[1]

Having this many accounts is practically not maintainable. Why? If you are serious about security, you need to make sure that the provided data is up to date. Things like passwords, your registration email etc. are all things that need to be updated. But why keep this large amount of accounts when you end up not using most of them at all? It might be better for you to regularly delete accounts that you are not using. Doing this also helps you avoid potential data breaches.

So in my opinion, you should also practice the habit of getting rid of stuff in the online world. Minimalism apparently reduces stress after all[2]. And evidently, people are drawn to simplicity and minimalism. A popular example might be Apple and its products.

What is your approach? How do you go about this issue? Do you maintain 100+ accounts? Don't you think having 100+ accounts (even with a password manager) takes a mental toll on you?

The purpose of this "Ask HN" is to solicit interesting approaches from people with good heuristics.

Reference: [1] https://digitalguardian.com/blog/uncovering-password-habits-are-users-password-security-habits-improving-infographic [2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-zen/201612/minimalism-when-living-less-means-more-mental-health

pwg 5 years ago |

Lets see:

Gmail - no

Outlook - no

Protonmail - no

Tutanota - no

GitHub - yes

Dropbox - no

Standard Notes - no

FC2 - no

Amazon - yes

iTunes - no

GOG.com - no

Steam - no

itch.io - no

Twitter - no

YouTube - no

FC2 (repeated above)

HN - yes

Stack Overflow - no

Discord - no

Linkedin - no

Netflix - no

Spotify - no

Mubi - no

Grammarly - no

eBay - yes

Bitwarden - no

SimpleLogin.io - no

Firefox Relay - no

Firefox Lockwise - no

So, 28 listed (removing the duplicate) yet only have four accounts.

> What is your approach?

A local (no cloud, not 'online') password manager. A manager is the only /reasonable/ alternative for tracking all the various sites that all want one to register an account for this or that use.

> Do you maintain 100+ accounts?

My password manager has about 350 "entries" in it -- not all of the "entries" are "online accounts". So taking 75% of that as likely "online accounts" that comes out to about 262 "accounts". Do note that most of those are retailers from which I've purchased once, but that failed to have a "guest purchase" option. The 'core' day-to-day usage entres over any given time period amounts to likely about 5-15 total.

> Don't you think having 100+ accounts (even with a password manager) takes a mental toll on you?

Not at all, because all the effort of "remembering" is handled by the manager. That is one of the benefits of using a password manager, all the effort of remembering "do I have an account here" and "what is the user-id/password for that account" is handled by the manager, which is a massive mental simplification. When a given account is needed, a short search either finds it, or I just add another to track it for reuse later.

minimalismhuh 5 years ago | |

Your answer showed me how insignificant my question is. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic or demeaning manner. It's just a fact. So thank you! :) (And happy holidays.) Tough maybe there's one small issue: your personal data (date of birth, home address, real name etc.) is stored in these 100+ accounts. I mean don't you mind a potential data breach?

For those retailer accounts that don't offer guest logins, I would immediately request a deletion of my account. For the other accounts like Visual Studio C++, I just use a throwaway email address and enter fake information.

pwg 5 years ago | | |

> Tough maybe there's one small issue: your personal data (date of birth, home address, real name etc.

Why would you think that?

If a site has no need for my date of birth, but demands one anyway, it gets a fake date.

If a site has no need for address, but demands it anyway (other than for shopping sites obviously), it too gets fake data.

Same with real name. If it has no need (i.e. it is just some account to 'read comments' or some such) then that is fake as well.

Just because a site asks for datapoint X, does not mean you have to turn over datapoint X to the site.

> I mean don't you mind a potential data breach?

All of the data points you reference (date of birth, home address, real name) are all essentially public information, so, no. And for sites that received fake data, no, don't care in the least there.