Auth and identity systems are crucial yet complex components of platform strategy, often posing challenges in scaling securely while facing evolving API-based attack vectors. A conversation with Dan Moore highlights the importance of OAuth in API authorization, emphasizing its role as the de facto standard for access delegation and its necessity to prevent security breaches like Broken Object Level Authorization (BOLA), a top risk identified by OWASP. OAuth's implementation involves understanding its various "modes" and ensuring access controls are well-defined to avoid overwhelming users with too many or too few scopes. Additionally, authorization is seen as business logic that should evolve from being embedded in APIs to centralized systems as platforms scale. While JSON Web Tokens (JWTs) are commonly used for access control in OAuth implementations, care must be taken in their management to maintain security. The discussion underscores the importance of not building proprietary authorization solutions from scratch, advocating for leveraging available commercial and open-source tools to mitigate risks and complexity.