It looks to me as if ihatestatistics.com is a for-profit business selling educational materials and systems to universities. The design decisions that make most sense for them are not necessarily the most convenient for students. So e.g. they may be keen to be able to distinguish one student from another, take measures against cheating, encourage and/or measure “engagement”, etc. The things they do to that end may be annoying for students, but they still do them because they make their actually-paying customers happier, or make it easier to convince investors that they’re doing well, or help them plan future changes.
(In other words, your question is a bit like “Why oh why do publishers charge money for mathematics textbooks, instead of making them available for free?”.)
[EDITED to add:] For the avoidance of doubt, I entirely agree with you that all that stuff is annoying and that just having the material made available would be much nicer.
It looks to me as if ihatestatistics.com is a for-profit business selling educational materials and systems to universities. The design decisions that make most sense for them are not necessarily the most convenient for students. So e.g. they may be keen to be able to distinguish one student from another, take measures against cheating, encourage and/or measure “engagement”, etc. The things they do to that end may be annoying for students, but they still do them because they make their actually-paying customers happier, or make it easier to convince investors that they’re doing well, or help them plan future changes.
(In other words, your question is a bit like “Why oh why do publishers charge money for mathematics textbooks, instead of making them available for free?”.)
[EDITED to add:] For the avoidance of doubt, I entirely agree with you that all that stuff is annoying and that just having the material made available would be much nicer.