There’s the strategies you see in the viral Twitter threads and the TechCrunch headlines.

Then there’s the strategies that quietly but decisively rewrite the rules of business.

Spent the last 7 days researching, analysing, and writing about a humble product that impacted our internet far more than it gets credit for.

— Tom

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The ‘Sign in with Google’ moat

Chess Move

The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

If you’ve ever clicked “Sign in with Google”, you've compounded one of the internet’s most elegant and powerful ecosystem strategies.

It started innocently enough - Google standardising logins across their 1st-party products like Gmail, YouTube, Drive, Maps etc.

By spinning out this internal infrastructure into a public developer platform, they hoped to established ‘Google Account’ as the de facto internet identity.

But they weren’t the only ones:

Despite fierce (and ongoing) competition from Apple, Facebook, Microsoft (incl Microsoft Account, GitHub, and LinkedIn) etc, Google has effectively won the ‘Social Login’ wars.

Today, ‘Google Sign-In’ is ubiquitous, from Spotify to Airbnb to competitors like Mozilla to your cousin’s GPT-wrapper.

Here’s how they did it.

Breakdown

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

1.  Win through convenience

Google recognised 2 universal truths about online identity:

• Users hate creating new accounts

• Developers hate building authentication systems

By offering a free, secure, off-the-shelf, and easy-to-implement authentication system, Google positioned itself as the obvious choice for both sides of the market:

For users:

• One-click to initiate signup

• No new password to remember

• Universal 2-factor authentication

• No ‘verify your email address’ flow

• Notifications for any suspicious activity

• Centralised tracking of app usage history

• Consistent authentication process for all apps

• Automatic profile population (name, photo, etc.)

• No need to trust apps with commonly-used passwords

• Automatic Sign-in when returning for subsequent sessions

• Enhanced security options through Google Account settings

For developers:

• App personalisation with user location, birthday, picture etc.

• Decreases likelihood of fake or temporary email signups

• Developer docs and community for troubleshooting

• Free access to Google's security infrastructure

• Reduced development time and complexity

• Increased trust through Google's brand

• Lower user drop-off during registration

By solving real pain points for both sides, Google silently became the internet’s default login experience for an enormous number of users and developers.

2. Create a data feedback loop

Each ‘Google Sign-in’ is a win-win-win scenario.

It provides value to (1) users and (2) developers, but it also gives (3) Google:

• Data on frequency and patterns of usage

• Insights into emerging platforms and trends

• Visibility into which apps its users are adopting

This data feeds back into Google's core business, helping them:

• Identify strategic opportunities (acquisitions, products, etc.)

• Improve search/ad personalisation based on app usage

• Track and stay ahead of competitive threats

By making ‘Google Account’ the gateway to the internet, Google created a network of 1st-party and 3rd-party cookies that give them unparalleled insights into internet activity.

3. Build an ecosystem moat

The beauty of ‘Google Sign-in’ is the flywheel it creates:

• The more users who use it → the more valuable it is for developers

• The more valuable it is for developers → the more developers who add it

• The more developers who add it → the more valuable it is for users

• The more valuable it is for users → the more users who use it

With each rotation of this flywheel, Google's position strengthens. Users become more dependent on their Google accounts, developers become more reliant on Google's authentication infrastructure, and the switching costs for both sides compound.

Even Apple, with its extraordinary platform power, has struggled to break Google's authentication dominance.

In 2019, Apple made it mandatory for all iOS apps using social logins to also offer 'Sign in with Apple'. Yet 3 years later, Okta (a leading Identity-as-a-Service provider) found that Google still commanded 75% of social logins, with Apple capturing just 14%.

Google solved the internet’s identity crisis, and created a compounding competitive moat in the process.

Rabbit Hole

The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more

How Chrome ate Internet Explorer ↗

[3 minute read]

If the ‘Identity Wars’ were about controlling the internet’s front door, the ‘Browser Wars’ were about owning the entire house.

Here’s how Google systematically dismantled Microsoft’s browser dominance.

The data behind social sign-ins ↗

[10 minute read]

Okta's deep-dive into login patterns across millions of users reveals Google’s complete dominance over the authentication market.

Plus some other interesting nuggets:

• Why B2B apps favour different providers than consumer apps

• The surprising growth of social login in workforce scenarios

• How content and audience dictate social login preferences

Introducing Google+ Sign-In: simple and secure, minus the social spam ↗

[2 minute read]

Launch post on the ‘Google+ Developers Blog’ (🪦) fresh from 2013.

“Today we’re adding a new feature to the Google+ platform: application sign-in. Whether you’re building an app for Android, iOS or the web, users can now sign in to your app with Google, and bring along their Google+ info for an upgraded experience. It’s simple, it’s secure, and it prohibits social spam.

And we’re just getting started.”

Pumping this playlist while writing today’s article - hope you enjoyed!

— Tom 

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