Comment by the_biot
5 years ago
The other day I sent out a link made with Google Photos' "create link" function. That's not a share to another user, just a link that anyone can open, no Google account required. But one person showed me that hitting that link on her phone, Google wanted to authenticate her before showing the picture.
That is utterly unacceptable.
Genuinely curious - could you elaborate on why that is so unacceptable? What does requiring authentication imply, or lead to in the future?
Prevents sharing with friends who don't have a Google account. It breaks what could be a general purpose sharing mechanism.
This sounds like mild inconvenience.
What's evil about that?
Mild inconveniences can become problematic at scale. One person taking a crap in a lake is typically not a big deal. 1,000,000 people doing the same is a serious health risk. Scale matters.