[numpad0]

I think of likely reasons this happens is username exhaustion. >100 million people are born every year, it won’t take centuries for us to fill up every namespaces with dead accounts.

Before that inevitably happens, there will probably be a point we all have to switch over to identification not by user selected username but random alphanumeric ID string, with display names only for search, free from uniqueness requirements and somehow impersonation resistant. A lot of social media actually uses such ID in the backend/for internal uses(variable length primary key!? Of course not!), maybe it’s time frontend experiences think about that, too.

[omoikane]

> I think of likely reasons this happens is username exhaustion

I think Google never recycles usernames due to security reasons:

https://support.google.com/mail/thread/48938290

https://twitter.com/Google/status/974054535974006784

Maybe you are suggesting that this policy is about to change?

[spc476]

I have a Gmail account [1] and I regularly get email for other people who share my name (at least three others). I find it amazing they think that's their email address (or other people think that they'll reach the right person by just <firstname><lastname>@gmail.com).

[1] Not my primary account but I got it to give Gmail a try when it was first opened to the public. I personally found it 'meh' but kept the account for testing purposes with my own email server.

[Baeocystin]

I was very happy to get the non-numbered version of my very common name back when gmail was new and invite-only.

It has turned out to be a monkey's paw wish, though. I get medical records, legal filings, private and personal correspondence, bills, everything. Trying to contact anyone involved to let them know that I'm not the me they think I am barely works. It's both maddening, and bizarre to me that so many people don't know their own email address, for genuinely important stuff.

[prmoustache]

Same here, I have access to so much private data from homonyms.

[bdcravens]

My username on Google is same as here, and I occasionally get emails for a Barbara with my last name who apparently mistyped her email when buying a car a few years ago.

[Terr_]

> I think of likely reasons this happens is username exhaustion.

I disagree, there is a solution out there, it's just more work because the client-software has to be smarter. We can take inspiration from how our meat-space society functions, where everybody maintains their own contextual aliases as metadata, something that can be personalized or shared.

For example, imagine we have a big global commenting site, and my own metadata says "Terr_ believes ID 49985189215 is Bob Smith."

When I ask the software to contact "Bob Smith", it knows who I mean from that mapping. When I publish something for other people to see and add a special reference to Bob Smith, it contains "{49985189215 which author knows as "Bob Smith}". People who already know 49985189215 as "Bobby Smith" would see that pop up on their screen instead, and the rare few which have a conflicting "Bob Smith" would see it rendered differently, making it obvious I don't mean their Bob Smith.

It gets more complex though when you consider the same user with multiple contexts: "I'll call Bob" at home might easily be a totally different person than "I'll call Bob" in the workplace.

[numpad0]

Yeah exactly my thinking. The user 499…215 is going to have some his own identity, but is also socially defined in contexts of friends or social bubble system like Google+ Circles/Discord Server/Mastodon Instance. That has to become the default over coming decade, perhaps half a decade.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Or they could just create a second email domain every 30 years, if that’s even a problem in the first place.

[yftsui]

Here is my ICQ number and I promise it is better than MSN

[dustymcp]

haha that is funny thay solution was already there but wasnt that modelled on the idea of everyone having a phonenumber ?

[dustymcp]

at some point you have to with enough mass..