Would you try an app before creating an account?
A friend sends you an app that might solve one small problem. You open it and the first screen asks you to create an account before you can see what it does. Some apps need an account to save work or sync; for a quick evaluation, that’s a real ask.
As someone building Inquir Compute, I’m curious about that first step. The difference may be whether you reach a useful moment before sharing an email, or whether signing up is itself part of getting value.
Do you prefer a guest or demo mode first, or are you happy to sign up if the app explains why? What’s one app that handled this well?
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If it weren't for SSO, I probably would have closed the app without linking my account. Nowadays, since most services use SSO, it seems people connect their accounts without any hesitation.
SSO removes the password step, but the permission screen can still be a stopping point
Would you treat basic sign-in differently from an app asking to read your email or files?
For me the line is whether a click costs the vendor money.
In the flashcard tool I build, the converters work with no account: paste your file, get the result in the browser. The part that calls an AI model needs a sign-in, because every run costs real money, and a guest mode would just be an open tap.
So I'd say an account is fair when it protects something that costs the app, and annoying when it only collects an email. The first screen should tell you which one it is.