Design optional no-login mode #407
Description
Currently almost all functionality is locked behind a login. It might be interesting to have a way for non-users to participate in chat and maybe even play media, just by picking a username, similar to sites like cytube.
I think one possible direction here is to create a kind of temporary account when folks pick a username. This account would only have the guest role. It could later be "upgraded" to a proper account.
There are some important things to think about there.
- How do we associate these accounts to the user?
- If we use a cookie and someone clears their cookies or uses a different browser, can they claim the same username? (probably not!)
- When do guest accounts expire?
- Can guest accounts create playlists? There is a big risk here: if they don't have a full user account, they may lose access to playlists they've created!
An alternative direction is to not have guest accounts, but have full accounts created using WebAuthn. For privacy reasons, it would have to be clear to users that they are creating a permanent account, so it would probably be a little less smooth than the guest account route. But, it would not require an email and password.
If we take the second approach, we have to make sure that users can add multiple login methods down the line. This is already a useful feature now that we have email/password login and social logins, but since WebAuthn is tied to the browser, it would be extra important for users who may have multiple devices or use different browsers on different systems.