My first experience with passkeys was eBay. They implemented them 3-4 years ago, and my password manager, Dashlane picked up on it. They offered to save it and I wouldn’t have to enter a username or password. Great, seemed to work. Until I needed to login on another device and then Dashlane saved that passkey too, but each passkey was tied to the specific device… only it wasn’t clear when I logged in which passkey I should choose, and chose the wrong one and it doesn’t work. After having like 6 different passkeys for eBay I gave up. Now I always decline to use passkeys. They don’t work, idk who uses them but as a fairly tech savvy user, without a very complex setup (chrome, with Dashlane installed) if it’s not working for me it’s probably just not working.
I’ll also add. I don’t have a good mental model for what a passkey is or how it works. And again, like most users if I don’t really understand what’s going on I’m just not gonna bother with it. For all the complexity that it takes to implement secure login with a username and password, most of it is hidden from the user, with passkeys it feels like they’re shoving all the complexity front and center, but not explaining any of it.
I’ll also add. I don’t have a good mental model for what a passkey is or how it works. And again, like most users if I don’t really understand what’s going on I’m just not gonna bother with it. For all the complexity that it takes to implement secure login with a username and password, most of it is hidden from the user, with passkeys it feels like they’re shoving all the complexity front and center, but not explaining any of it.