This is so common nowadays that for many sites I have the direct login page bookmarked. It indirectly implies that once you sign-up, the company stops caring about you. At-least for me.
There are some websites that are both super aggressive about timing out your session and also make you play hide and seek for the login button. Of the sites I use frequently UPS used to be about the worst offender but the most recent version of their site does have a usable login link.
Vanguard is another one that drives me up the wall. Going to Vanguard.com doesn't have a sign in area to autofill with a password manager; you have to go to the personal investors page. And sessions are hard limited to 15 minutes so you have to jump through these hoops every time. I have the correct page bookmarked but even on that page the log in boxes don't appear until half way down.
Even the solution in the article seems to suggest using cookies.
I don’t understand the problem, if people want to try or sign-up for your service they’ll locate the signup button. That’s a one time problem. A hidden login button just annoys existing customers.
My feeling is that this is down to testing without privacy in mind. Your site might be fine, but others aren’t so a minority of users will clear cookies at the end of each browser session. That’s not a senario most will test for or experience.
It implies that because it’s literally true. Not a complete loss of care, but it makes sense to hide the sign in button because users who are already signed up are already invested, and less likely to abandon the service. The front pages main job is to grow the company by attracting new users, and a sign in button for users who aren’t going anywhere anyways gets in the way of that.
Inconveniencing either current or prospective customers never ‘makes sense’. It’s not like you have a fixed amount of inconvenience you have to distribute.
You have a fixed amount of screen real estate on the landing page. Distributing it to your most important users for that page (prospective users) does make sense to me.
Is the solution presented in the blog to utilize a cookie to determine if someone is a prospective user versus already a user not an acceptable compromise?
It seems rather straightforward to me, from their example, to de-emphasize the "Sign Up" button and prioritize the "Sign In" button for someone who already has an account.
While that may be the case (I'd also argue that the front page should be a welcoming place for existing users), showing me that you value your existing users is a great marketing move.
It's otherwise very hard to convey that you care about existing customers so this seems like a no-brainer.