Why OpenID will never work

I currently use Disqus as the comment system on this blog, and they made a blog post today about their beta 2 updates. One of the ones that caught my eye was that they’re supporting OpenID and “making the registration process easier.”

This is a good thing since I know someone who managed to make their PASSWORD their USERNAME. Hmmm…that level of confusion doesn’t encourage users to sign up.

But here’s the thing about OpenID: the concept, as far as I understand it, is so very essential. And the implementation is total crap. It will never work, and here’s why:

Go to www.OpendID.com. There’s nothing there. If you’re serious you buy the domain.
If you google it and find out it’s OpenID.net, it’s still freaking hard to “get one.”

If OpenID really means business, they need to buy OpenID.com and set up a Google-esque home page where the user has a CLEAR “call-to-action.”

In other words, I want to go to OpenID and be prompted:

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“do you have a login with any of the following sites?” [dropdown box]

If not, create your OpenID here:

[box]

[password box]
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Currently, it’s just too byzantine.