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by pittsburgh 5192 days ago
As a developer, I agree that captchas can be a drag on users, and I think we should put serious thought into whether or not their UX-cost is justified. Personally, I try to avoid using them on sites I build.

That said, as a user, it's hard to hate ReCaptcha after hearing Luis von Ahn talk about and defend his invention: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ht4qiDRZE8

It's a clever way to digitize books (and now street signs) while keeping out spambots, and when I combine that knowledge with my affinity for Luis von Ahn as a person I find myself less annoyed every time I have to prove I'm not a robot.

1 comments

> It's a clever way to digitize books (and now street signs)

It used to be a cool idea when it benefited everyone, because it was used to ditigize public domain books that everyone could retrieve. Now, it's only a clever way for Google to use your brain to do stuff for their own purposes.