Phasing out Basic Authentication is, to be honest, a sensible decision. One of the older web authentication protocols, it uses cleartext usernames and passwords to control access to services.

Microsoft announced earlier this month that it's planning to deprecate the Exchange Web Services API for Office 365 users.

Today, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organization behind all web standards, has formally promoted the Web Authentication API to the title of official web standard.