[OpenID] OpenID and our ideals

[SitG Admin]

(Was "Re: OpenID and the COPPA".)
>If the movement gets critical mass beyond the social networking 
>space, one can see a world in which such firms, in order to build 
>market share or get to market fast in the new market of 
>authenticated comments and endorsement systems, will purchase 
>those privately-held OPs that (a) somehow get critical mass of 
>participation and consumer acceptance,

I must admit that I'm somewhat disturbed by the idea of companies 
simply walking up and blithely purchasing a *privately*-held OP. Of 
course I assume you mean OP's that provide for more than one user; 
*my* Provider is privately-held, and I'm not about to sell my 
identity to anyone, no matter how much money they throw at me. What 
disturbs me is how, in envisioning such an event occurring several 
times over many years, it bears a striking resemblance to several 
specks of mercury rolling around in a moving container until they 
combine into a single large blob. As of right now, my OpenID is (I 
assume; haven't tested it extensively) accepted by consumers all over 
the place. What happens to that - and, by extension, to all the other 
individuals (and *small* mercury blobs) - running their own OP's? 
Will the consumers be able to institute a new requirement that the 
"stragglers" give up on their old OP's, which are "losers, in the 
competitive world", and join one of the major OP's?

At that point, I think it would be feasible - having gotten the users 
hooked on using their OpenID to access the Consumer's services, a new 
change suddenly forces a large number of users to choose between an 
ideal they might not fully understand (that of decentralization, to 
avoid lock-in) which would require them to find a new (possibly with 
less security and/or other features) OP as well as endure a 
*hopefully* temporary inconvenience while demonstrating their 
commitment to that ideal to any Consumer involved in the change; and, 
continuing to use their existing OP, while perhaps exhorting any 
laggards they know to move on, and get with the program!

A backlash against company decisions is more effectual when a large 
number of their customers are involved. I think the important issue 
here is ideals:

For the large-scale Consumers, what is there about OpenID that would 
be worth more than the opportunity to own their OP's and lock-out the 
independents?

For the people developing OP's that serve multiple users, is the 
entire endeavor ultimately rooted in the hope to eventually attract 
attention from some rich buyer, or is there a reason to say "No." 
when money comes knocking?

For the end-users, is there an understanding of the promise that 
OpenID has, beyond mere "comment authentication" (to quote Peter 
Williams) or "single-sign-on"?

This last may be something for the OpenID Foundation to look into - 
when users visit openid.net, to see what it's all about, is equal 
weight given to all its advantages over the existing models? Are 
there any that could be emphasized more, so they aren't forgotten as 
users rush to embrace the bright new future?

-Shade

Postscript: If it *did* happen, I wouldn't be too concerned - all it 
would take is one idealistic (and still privately-held) OP to 
open-source their features and security measures, for a bunch of 
idealistic (but not that skilled) individuals to follow, and suddenly 
the users have a number of alternatives to choose from, easing the 
challenge of choosing "ideals" over "convenience".