A Farewell Letter to Passwords

To my dear and beloved passwords,

I’m writing you a letter, a good old fashioned letter, because I've come to realize that we need to take a break. It's not you, it's me. Or rather... it's the way we interact that's no longer working for me.

I remember when we first met: you were everything I was looking for. I thought you were strong, secure, and always there for me. I felt safe knowing that access to my accounts was in your hands.

But over time, things have changed. I’ve noticed that I’m frequently forgetting about you and then I’ll find myself locked out of my accounts. Sometimes, I have to go through the trouble of trying to recover you following a complicated process.

I also feel like you’re making things too hard on me. Sometimes I sit there and try to reach out to you... But, you keep on asking me for more and more! More characters, more symbols, not sequences! When does it all end? When I’m finally happy with you, you are not. I change. You change. But, sooner than later, we repeat this bad cycle all over again.

Don't get me wrong. We go way back. We’ve tried to make this work... We may have tried too hard to tell you the truth. We met with different password managers to make our relationship work, thinking there must be a solution for us, but all that ended up being just a way to divert us from the underlying issues. We must admit that our paths no longer align and move on.

There is no easy way to say this so I’ll just say it: I met someone new. I wasn’t looking for it; it was an accident. I want to try a new things. I want new ways to secure my accounts. This new method is easy on me and knows me too well. I can be myself around it: my face, my fingerprints, my devices. This method is called passkeys and it unlocks the world for me like never before.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I surely know what the past has: you. With passkeys... There’s this feeling in my gut that they might be the one and only for a long time.

For all that we’ve been, I wish to remain friends. You still are a big deal in my life and I'll still need you around. Our time together is not over yet, but it will be different than before. It will be faster, more secure, and phishing-resistant, which is something you'll never have.

Farewell old friend,
An Internet user