February 20, 2026
When ‘magic link’ meets “make it stop”
What Is OAuth?
OAuth finally explained like a “magic link” — and the crowd screams “PAIN”
TLDR: An OAuth founder explains it as a simple “magic link” idea: prove it’s you without sharing your password. Readers cheered the clarity, griped about the title, joked about scrolling, and admitted widespread confusion—proof this behind-the-scenes login tech is everywhere, crucial, and still maddening to understand.
An internet elder (who says they sketched OAuth 19 years ago) just dropped a plain-English explainer: OAuth is basically a magic link system that lets apps act for you without your password, and OpenID Connect (OIDC) is the fancy sign-in version. Think: we send a secret to a place only you can open, you prove it’s you by showing the secret. That’s it, the rest is standards dust and bike-shedding — cue the XKCD 927 memes. The crowd’s reaction? Equal parts relief and chaos. One top comment grumbled the title was misleading — not "how it works," but why it’s built this way — and thanked the author for finally answering the right question. Another went full mood-board: “Pain. Thanks for asking.” Users confessed they use OAuth daily yet still don’t get it; one even vowed to write their own just to learn. And in true internet fashion, the hottest side-quest was… how to scroll the page. Yes, really: “put your mouse in the middle.” The drama isn’t about code — it’s about clarity, naming, and UX. Bottom line: people love the simple story and still hate the confusion. OAuth powers everything, but the vibe remains “necessary evil with a magic trick.”
Key Points
- •OAuth was created to standardize delegated authorization, replacing insecure, custom site-specific methods.
- •OpenID Connect (OIDC) uses OAuth and is functionally similar to magic link authentication for sign-in.
- •In 2006, Twitter’s need to support OpenID 1.0 for desktop clients without passwords highlighted limitations of existing methods.
- •Prior to OAuth, services like Flickr, AWS, and delicious used bespoke, often insecure approaches to third-party access.
- •OAuth’s specifications are maintained within the IETF and operate like a flexible framework; OIDC was later composed from OAuth and took years to formalize.