It happens almost every time. You see a news story you’d really like to comment on. They make you register, which means they want advertising info on you, already a pain in the ass. But this time, you’re motivated enough to give it a try. So you fill out your birth year and ZIP code and crap like that (absolutely necessary for commenting on a web news story, naturally), then click “register”…

And of course, nothing happens. They send you no confirmation email. So you sit there wondering, “Well, will it come in the next five minutes? Should I wait an hour?” Nothing in spam, nothing in the Inbox. The account checks out fine, is functioning. Their site claims it should only take a few minutes, but has no option to reapply quickly with another account, they only suggest something must be wrong on your side. And you just know that if you try to reapply again, you’ll meet a mess of problems, like they’ll tell you that your user name is now taken, or the password cannot be re-used, or something else will go wrong–and if it doesn’t, then you’ll just have the same problem as before–no email will come.

And now you’ve wasted half an hour trying to make a stupid damned comment on a news story.

If this had only happened to me once or twice, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But it doesn’t. More than half of all large sites’ registration processes I have tried to access, over several years, have given me this frustration, which is why I rarely attempt it any more.