Having Accounts Anywhere Sucks Now

I use Yelp very sparingly these days, so it's been a while since I used it. That said, my account has existed for (jesus fucking christ shoot me) 17 years, so I'm a known quantity.

I wanted to look up a new nearby place for some reviews today, so I decided to use Yelp since that is it's putative purpose.

The process went like this:

• open new browser tab
• type in "yelp.com", hit ENTER
• my password manager recognizes site, enters valid username and password for Yelp

THIS SHOULD BE IT. THE STORY SHOULD END HERE WITH ME HAVING LOGGED INTO THE SITE. BUT IT'S 2025 SO FUCK NO IT'S NOT OVER YET.

• instead of being logged in, I am shown a page that states a 6-digit code has been emailed to me
• I switch tab focus to my mail tab to retrieve said code
• I delete that email so it's not clogging my inbox
• I tab back to Yelp, enter the code and finally am logged in to where I can actually search for the goddamned restaurant.

SURELY THAT'S THE END OF THE STORY, SMR, THERE CAN'T BE MORE TO IT, CAN THERE?!?!?!?

• my mail tab beeps that I have a new email, which sets off a lifelong OCD reaction that requires me to check it immediately
• I tab back to my mail
• it's Yelp, emailing me to let know that I just logged in
• thanks, Yelp
• delete that email
• tab back to Yelp, and finally look at some reviews of the place I'm interested in, which are, of course, the usual useless Yelp mix of 5 star "BEST PLACE EVAR" and 1 star "THEIR FOOD KILLED MY DOG" jottings of the locally deranged.

Why is everything like this now, man? I could not give a single hot red fuck if my Yelp account was compromised ever for any reason. It's a fuckin' review aggregation site/extortion front. Any Bulgarian teenager who wants access to my account there can have it. 

I already spend all day begrudgingly retrieving 6-digit codes from emails to plug into websites for work. I don't want to do it for meaningless shit like Yelp. NONE of these fucking sites really do any security properly anyways, it's all theater (oh, you want a tough password recipe but a string of words I can actually remember, which is far more secure than WOIJHolkano;23252323#$)#mlboaiwe, isn't allowed? Drink my piss, you dumb fuckers).

Every site should have a checkbox on their account page that you can check that says "I absolve you of any responsibility if my data gets hacked from here because what data you have on me is shit I don't care about. Never require anything more than a reasonably decent password along with my username to access this shit".

"but smr, if you just did what normal people do and only use permanently-logged in apps on your phone none of this would both--"SHUT THE FUCK UP I DO NOT WANT TO READ RESTUARANT REVIEWS ON A SIX INCH SCREEN GODDAMMIT, I HAVE A BIG BEAUTIFUL MONITOR THAT I AM IN FRONT OF ALL DAY I WANT TO READ SHIT THERE VIA FUCKING WEBSITES THAT I CAN LOG IN AND OUT OF WHEN I AM DONE RATHER THAN LET THEM SIT ON MY PHONE SENDING NOTES TO MOUNTAIN VIEW EVERY TIME I TAKE A PISS

A related gripe is that I don't want codes in my email, or via SMS ever. Both suck mad dick security-wise. I have an MFA system that is way more secure than that. Every good nerd does. But do any of the big sites leverage that properly? No. 

What a garbage world we've built of what seemed so promising even ten years ago. Depressing.