Copper - Password-free signups. No social network required.

@juhslk are you one of the folks on a Windows machine running Chrome, by chance? We're hearing this from a number of folks in the community.

@chulk90 i think you'll see us move away form SMS as the only / primary way to deliver authentication codes. The expense, deliverability issues in some geos, and some security concerns demand it. The opportunity we see is to build a great product for people. We'll look to find value-added services for the people we serve and charge for those to fund operations. We don't currently have plans to charge developers, nor sell data. To build the best product for people, we believe we have to choose them as our customer, exclusively. Take a look at our FAQ https://withcopper.com/about#faq and Privacy Policy https://github.com/withcopper/do... where we talk about these issues in more detail.

@erik_apichai_vikander this should have been fixed a few hours ago. Please let me know if you have further problems so we can take a look.

@taylorbarr hey Taylor, there's a definite trend toward moving away from email + password as the way we authenticate. This started in the East, where the PC wave was skipped and most people's first computer was/is a smartphone. There phone numbers are the favored identifier as many people don't have an email address. Here in the West, we're waking up to the same reality, especially the younger generations. We use far too many services these days, at trend that's only increasing, to use reasonably secure passwords on all of our accounts. Our phone will be the physical key to unlock your digital world in the not-too-distant future. While it may feel foreign now, using your phone number will be common place very soon. What are your concerns with using your phone number? We can address those points in the product and messaging moving forward.

@taylorbarr @dougw Would be interesting to have the option of "alias" numbers like in gmail that you can use to sign up for sites that are on a lower credibility tier... and you could then block that number if needed... just a thought. I signed up... am really attracted by the simplicity in user sign-up/on-boarding for apps we're developing targeted at the professional medical market. Which apps / sites currently use Copper?

@taylorbarr One way I deal with this is I use a Google Voice number - the texts go straight to my inbox :)

@dougw Thanks for your explanation. Two things though: Can you back up data that proves this vs predicting a trend based on your east coast/ west coast trend opinion? To me, phone #= for the most part, you pay for. Email address = "free". I am all for the idea of getting rid of passwords - don't get me wrong on that but not at the sacrifice of my phone number (yes - I agree with you: the phone will be the physical key to unlock it; I just don't think it is use of the phone number). My concerns: I keep my phone on me all day - it's an extension, much like many of it is to others here. That means people can call me at anytime. Email - it's more asynchronous and less intrusive; I can unsubscribe. The switching costs if my email address, if it were to get in the wrong hands or sold, is less of a switching cost (IMO) of getting a new phone number. As much as I want to say, "yes - company that I just signed up for, I trust you with my phone number" it's just a natural trigger for me not to hand it over - even if it IS just for logging in. It's the same rational feeling behind not wanting to share your SS# online (although more serious) - right? I guess what I am saying is - it comes down to companies, which I don't know if I can trust, having my phone number and the potential harm it would be, if those companies got hacked (or it could be that I worked for several hosting companies and saw first hand how people take for granted data security). Either way - good luck!

@decktonic I use Google Voice which all #'s are required to be tied to a device phone number - so they technically still have access.:) Yeah I can block it each time a spammer calls me - but what if a company gets hacked and sells your phone # to 1000 spammers and they all call? err - no good for me.

@degrems i like that

@johnny5sf we had some hiccups this morning preventing users with phone numbers from certain country codes from successfully receiving the code, but we have fixed those. So users from anywhere in the world should be able to use Copper. That being said, we see many problems with SMS, delivery rates and security concerns, chief among them, which we'll fix in future revs. Copper, as it is today, was primarily designed and built for consumer services. We've spoken with a few enterprise apps and there is a long-standing preference for email and passwords because they are a known pattern and (ironically) they are easier to share (think teams). We'll be bringing email into the fold as an identifier soon to address your concern, and have some great ideas on how teams can benefit from Copper as well.

@jason_neiman hey thanks for taking a look and giving us some patience. We're early as you note and wanted help from the community to find bugs like this and an effort to get better in public. Chrome on Windows in particular has some bugs that we're attending to now. It sounds like you are seeing those as well. Stand by.

@madsemiil what type of information would you include if you were to add this?

@dougw Thanks for your response! We do all our verification manually at the moment (@funderbeam). Users have to upload an image of passport or national ID. Would be amazing if people could do that with you, and then be able to sign up for all business that are affected by AML legislation and have to go through KYC processes. And, it's a pain for users to have to do this again and again. I've done it three times in the last year, and even if it is as smooth as with @number26

@otto_offringa i'm taking a look at this right now. Can you give me an example number that you tried to enter so I can write a test for it?