ghosts of aim
I’ve often felt that companies like Yahoo and AOL, the companies that have been around for basically as long as the Internet has been popular, should do a username purge. Lots of usernames for these companies, login names that can easily be remembered by people, go unused as the original holder of that login no longer uses the service, or has chosen a new name. Having to add numbers to every login simply makes things more difficult to remember and more difficult to deal with. And just try to create a username on Yahoo that is both A) meaningful and B) available without adding digits. Good luck with that.
One step I’ve considered as a potential solution is for companies with large username pools to do purges. If somebody has not logged into their Yahoo login since 1998, chances are they aren’t going to need it anymore. The same goes for AOL, which has millions of users on it’s AOL and AOL Instant Messenger services.
But that brings up a few problems. Firstly, how long should the login period be? Some free email sites, Lycos and Yahoo included, will dump your mailbox if you don’t login within a certain period of time. These times are measured in months. Is it too much to ask that a user login at least once every couple of years to keep their account active? I don’t think so.
The second problem is maybe a little “out there”, but bear with me. Say, for example, that I have a list of 10 people on my AIM buddy list. And let’s say that some guy I play Counter Strike with from Idaho gets killed in a car accident. After hearing the news, I may not think to remove him from my buddy list. AOL purges his screen name eventually, and a new person takes it. Imagine the shock when several years later I see someone with that screen name sign on! Now consider the implications if this was a spouse or close friend! It’s almost like the girl from Lain!
So I really doubt companies will do this. If our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren all become eventual users of AIM, expect a completely long and random set of digits to be required as part of their username.