It's funny we expect governments stuff to be so bad that when they do something at the level of a regular SaaS our minds are blown.

it's the virtuous cycle of Republicans running on the meme that the government is inherently bad, then using their power to make it worse

Oh look, only took 7 comments to find someone that is making the assertion that bad UX is a partisan issue.

It's essentially true. Look at the battle over the IRS trying to make it easier to file taxes. Republicans are strongly opposed.

If the government websites are too good, a lot of useless middlemen will be out of business.

It may not be true in principle, but it's true in practice.

To be clear, I like login.gov considerably more than random SaaS logins.

I remember on some radio show many years back a program where tech people were going back to government to make the tech better. They interviewed the guy that started it and it was really inspiring. I wish I could remember more details. These are true patriots.

You might be thinking of the US Digital Service (https://www.usds.gov/)

https://codeforamerica.org/ sounds similar

People like Matt Cutts left Google to do exactly this. Much happier than when he was the head of the Google Search Spam team.

reminds me of Snow Crash, where the US federal government is reduced to a software entity.

Do they still force you to share your biometrics with a third party private service (Id.me)?

Login.gov doesn't.. but plenty of federal sites (like IRS) are still using that id.me poppycock. Here's to hoping they prioritize a migration soon.

I was absolutely flabbergasted that they didn't even white-label the third party stuff behind their own .gov domain, which means they're mis-training users towards "It's normal to hand over extremely sensitive official information to vaguely-plausible-looking companies with websites and certificates ultimately under the control of Montenegro."

I doubt any conventional web user knows or cares that “.me” is a ccTLD, or that it’s even related to Montenegro. If anything the reaction is “you don’t need a .com!?”

And they'll accept anything from you without any ID whatsoever if you just use paper and a postage stamp.

What do you mean exactly?

The IRS doesnt require any auth if you print out whatever and mail it to them, no internet. They just believe you

Login.gov is adding the capabilities needed to meet IRS’ identity and credential proofing requirements.

Will require biometrics in some form, with fallback to in person proofing at USPS.

(no affiliation, just a fan)

SSA Already announced the switch to login.gov, it looks like it will have broad support if they are starting the migration there.

I don't suppose this implies the end of the social security number as a form of identity access authorization?

No, because the government didn’t use it as one, just private businesses.

Yeah it's cool. Lately just feels like they're doing work, not all home runs, but they're out there swinging.

I've noticed this too, night and day from the Trump years.

Here in Ohio we have the Intel plant going up just east of me, goverment spending is great when it works and thats what the Dems have become all about. But the flip side is our courts have been sold off to the highest bidder and our juvinile and family court systems are run like for porfit orphanages with the legal right to seperate children from their families [1]. Big government is great when it works but terrifying when it overreaches as is happening now.

I'm glad everyone is making money but, in more ways than one, we are simply incurring a debt that will have to be paid back by our children.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Injustice-Inc-Americas-Commodifies-Ch...

https://data.gov is also worth mentioning

There’s a ton of interesting stuff at https://www.web.dma.mil/WEB-NextGen/

Just look at the significant links section