Ask HN: Confirm email or password?

Username once, password once, and email address once. If by some twist of fate I enter my password wrong, they have my email address. They send a confirmation email right away, while I'm still on the signup page, so if I got my email address wrong and that confirmation bounces, I get notified, and I have a chance to correct it (since I'm logged in after account creation).

Here is my rational for making the switch. I want users to become engaged. The fact that they are registering means I did something right that motivated them to act. I require, like many others, to validate their email and account by clicking on a link that gets emailed to them. If they never get the link they never get fully registered. I am sure a large number of users would not follow up on this. They were motivated at the time to register but that motivation might not be strong enough to persuade them to troubleshoot their registration. This results in turning a motivated user into a disgruntled surfer.

Plus if the password was wrong they can always reset it with their validated and confirmed email

For a tech audience, maybe one of each is fine without confirmation. Technical users would be more careful.

For a much less technical audience (at least 50% of FB users) you can never be too careful. FB would probably ask the user 3 times each, but they'd be guaranteed that their users would then enter it once incorrectly, and may never be able to correctly submit the form.

Seriously though, it does depend on the audience, imo.