Once authentication had become a framework responsibility, the next question was fairly obvious. If the framework knows who I am, where do I go to manage my account? Until this point, the individual applications had been the things users interacted with. The framework existed largely behind the scenes, providing the infrastructure that made those applications work. User accounts changed that relationship. The framework now had something that users needed to interact with directly. That led to the idea of a common Account page. Rather than having each application create its own account page, the framework could provide one place where a user could see their account and the functionality available to them across the website. This might sound like a relatively small interface decision, but it reinforced an important architectural principle. The account belongs to the user, not to the application. If I use the Publications application and then move to the Marketplace, I s...