Eric Norin of Ping Identity admits he thinks that Passport was a damn fine idea, but people wouldn't accept it because of the microsoft stigma.
I'm at a loss as to how to move the conversation forward here. There are somewhere near 200 million active Passport accounts (unused accounts are swept out, so these numbers represent actual usage). People clearly accept Passport… for dealing with MSN in conformance with the Third Law. “Microsoft stigma” doesn't seem to play much of a role here…
Eric thinks Passport's problems can be explained by bad marketing. I can't even think about the marketing issues, because I think there is something much deeper going on: Passport was very successful when in accordance with the Third Law, and unsuccessful when it was not.