Email address sign-ins have lots of problems with respect to support, and you have to factor in your support costs.<p>The automatic verification of the user identity is a bonus but for most sites you don't really need that.<p>In the case of this particular website, which already seems to have a bunch of free options, the 'freemium' model would seem to work a lot better, get them in small steps at the time and make a conversion funnel.<p>Goal 1 would be to get the user to visit several times<p>Goal 2 would be to get them to invest a bit of their identity in the site, make them a 'registered user'<p>Goal 3 would be an upsell, give them access to premium content for a fee<p>It's a tough model to market, but because you have a number of steps you can automate the analysis of how effective the various steps of the funnel are. By the time you are ready to ask for card&#38;expiry you have built up a trust relationship already and 90% of the signup process is over.