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You add authentication to an ASP.NET Core app, run the scaffolder, and suddenly there are 47 files in your project that you didn't write and don't understand. That's the moment most people decide Identity is "too complicated."

It isn't complicated. It's just badly explained.

Start with the name. Microsoft uses the word "Identity" in five different product names, so when you Google a question you get answers for all five tangled together. And the Stack Overflow advice is for four different versions across a decade of rewrites — Membership, Simple Membership, ASP.NET Identity, and now ASP.NET Core Identity. Half of it won't work and won't tell you why.

Here's the part that actually unlocks it: ASP.NET Core Identity is three layers. A data model at the bottom, services in the middle, and an optional UI on top. When you scaffolded it, you got all three dumped on you at once — that's the overwhelm.

Once you see the layers separately, the whole thing clicks. The video walks through each one.