I Made a Mistake That Costs me 612 Users

Having the right amount of friction for people to use your app is important. I used to think all friction was bad friction, but I've come to realize the amount of friction you need depends on what you're building.

In the case of your app WeWatch, removing as much friction as humanly possible is the right approach. I'd even consider going a step further and replace the auth flow altogether with a room code similar to how Jackbox.tv works.

The reason minimum friction is the right approach in your case is because there's no danger in people posting wild shit on your service. The worst thing someone can do on your app is use it for its intended purpose by swiping on movies they think are interesting.

But when you start letting users leave comments or there are places for user generated content, or everytime someone uses your app it has to make an expensive ($) API call, that's when adding friction is important. I learned this lesson pretty well in February when I launched my programming support helpline Call a Dev on Hacker News. No confirmed email necessary, you didn't even need an account lol. I was fanatical about removing friction because I wanted people to use my app.

Well you can probably guess what happened next. A bunch of dumbasses were posting silly shit like "Why is my butt full of poop?"

The way i manage the checking of email addresses is:
Let them in right away.
Send verify email.
Display banner in app reminding them to vefify if they haven't
Most people will get around to it in thdir own time.
Just don't stop them using the app.

I absolutely love the idea. I will check it out one of these days!

Wow. You have a great sense of humor.