<Snipped quote by Kangaroo>
My answer is definitely too big

I worked under the assumption that the cases that weren't allowed would be so few that they would be insignificant - I'm probably very lazy wrong for doing so. But by the time I realized the problem looked like a geometric series I was going crazy (I was trying to brute force it as a programming exercise)

I'm not sure I completely understand your approach or what you meant by "network diagram approach" tbh
Wouldn't it be 36^4*37^n for n= 0:13? n= 1:13 ignored the two character usernames for n=0. I'm not sure why you add the 36^2 instead of adding them either?
idk it's been a while since I've done this sort of maths

Wouldn't it exceed 37^15 since I'm basically summing 37^15+37^14+37^13+...+37^2?

And anyways you're right about multiple spaces in a row - that isn't allowed either.

Honestly without knowing all the rules it's difficult to make an estimate.

I didn't consider disallowing multiple spaces myself but the network diagram approach is looking at it where every step has 'x' possible future steps. The 36^2 is all of the two alphanumeric usernames possibilities. 36^2*37 is all of the three alphanumeric username possibilities and so on until n=13 which is all of the 15 alphanumeric usernames. So basically you have 14 different sets of potential usernames from 2-15 characters long.

I think you'ld have to do multiple tests for each 'type' of username (Just numbers, just letters, both numbers and letters, all spelling something.) and then add them up. Though, I only have a US ninth grade math education, so don't quote me.

I think you'ld have to do multiple tests for each 'type' of username (Just numbers, just letters, both numbers and letters, all spelling something.) and then add them up. Though, I only have a US ninth grade math education, so don't quote me.

Thats exactly what I did.

Names like Zyytp will be the norm.

@Nilesapa

This is more what I was getting at.

Eh, even you were only allowed to pick usernames by splicing together 1-3 english words (of which there's apparently about 180000~750000, but let's be conservative), you'd still get a ludicrous 180000 + 180000^2 + 180000^3 = 5832032400180000 (about 5.8*10^15) possible usernames, ignoring limits on total character length and whatnot. Judging by how many people use this scheme, I suppose it's a fair enough estimate of how many legible usernames there are.

Which at least indicates that the future probably isn't going to need highly butchered and concise usernames. But it won't stop people from using them anyways, I'd guess.

Well, I imagine the easy fix would be to separate screen names from usernames. Like, you'd sign in with your shitty, number filled username, but you could set the actual name that appears to everyone else to be whatever you want, even if someone else already uses that name. Sure, this could lead to impersonation and shit, but plenty of sites like youtube already have verification type stuff, so I'm not sure it'd be that big of a deal.

Or maybe in the strange new future of 20XX, we'll all be forced by our supreme overlords to each have some semblance of originality

And thus the second Dark Ages will truly begin

So, basically the system Steam uses?