I've been online for over two decades now and I have noticed that the usual "log in", "log out" has been slowly replaced by "sign in" and "sign out" in the past half a decade.<p>Also "sign up" has replaced "register" and "create account".<p>Does anybody know why?
My best guess would be familiarity, a connection to the real world.<p>When you go into a physical location, say visiting a hospital or business, you "sign in" and "sign out" of that place.<p>When you participate in an activity, for example a class or sports club, you "sign up" to join.
Probably because the term SSO (Single Sign On) was coined and used "sign", and the various "Sign in with $BigTechCompany" buttons are everywhere, so "logout" started conspicuously not matching.
I've had some users confuse the terms. We use register, log in, logout now.<p>Sign up and sign in confused some people because of how it mentally translated to some people's native language. We targeted more elderly people too, who didn't know the difference.<p>I assume that log in and log out might translate poorly to some other languages. Lots of people optimize heavily on registration, like even a 1% difference can be significant. And copy is low effort, so I assume there's a reason it evolved this way. Maybe it's a hint on which market the website targets.
That's an interesting question. Especially, I would associate "signing up" more with a paying subscription then I would a registration or an account creation
Because it’s more colloquial. Login sounds more technical. It doesn’t pass the Chinese immigrant mom test. If I tell her to login, she will be confused. If I tell her to sign in, there’s a better chance she’ll understand