Why? Things seem to be going well for them (look at the article you're commenting on). There are smart web people building this system up; presumably this is something they thought hard about before implementing.
- facebook and/or google may not be around forever
- my account with facebook and/or google could get disabled by them on a whim,
severing my link with the Khan academy
- there is no upside to me to log in with a facebook
and/or google account
- there is a downside, which is that I have to sign up for a different service, that
I may have valid reasons for not wanting to join (in the case of fb that does not
require a whole lot of imagination)
Really, when you only allow people to log in to your site by forcing them to become a member of another site first you are creating a barrier that need not exist.
I'm sure there are plenty of valid reasons for them why they do it this way (possibly, for instance because google and facebook do a lot of work to ensure that their accounts are only given out to those that deserve it, thereby cutting out on spam), but for me it does not work.
For sure that is a small minorities, but small minorities are at least still allowed to speak up. Good thing HN does not require a facebook or a google login.
- the stories of disabled accounts are vastly over-hyped, and the likelihood of it happening are almost nil
- there is significant upside for you to use your Facebook or Google account to signup/login with a service. Much less work, it's one click to login after you authorize it every time, no need to have another login/pass combo, and if you wish to no longer use the site, it's easy to disable
- most people have a Facebook or Google already, especially KA's market
The effort to create and maintain signups/logins separately for KA vs using existing drop-in solutions for both Google & FB makes the decision obvious. This is a much more convenient solution for both the users and devs of KA.
HN does not require but does allow you to use a similiar login scheme with Clickpass.
Better to play it safe and to open that door as wide as possible.
Why is this particular cost/benefit tradeoff bad? Again: the evidence is that Khan is doing well. And Khan is not run by morons who just do whatever Google and Facebook --- the two largest identity providers on the Internet --- tell them to do.
You just asked the commenter to spell it out in your previous comment. Chastising him/her for doing so really, really doesn't move us forward. His comments about requiring sign-up (particularly on services that don't allow minors under 13) were an excellent explanation.
Signing a student up to a standalone service is no problem, but as soon as that service includes email or other student communication, the teachers need to get parents' consent.
This is really limiting the adoption across the rest of her school, they don't really want to get everyone a new GMail or Facebook account.
I know that at my sisters' charter school (2 schools, K-8 and 9-12), the entire school is on the Google Apps Education platform and getting started with Khan Academy was really simple for them, as they already had name@school.com email accounts they were used to using.
That being said, we're thinking about becoming our own identity provider as well, primarily for this reason.
Just one of those things that's on the list and has to be weighed against everything else -- the majority of our users are doing just fine w/ Google/Facebook.