Comment by ryan29

I think there are potential alternatives that could evolve.

My preferred solution would be domain validated identities with long lived, global reputation alongside some type of attestation. For example, if I have a GitHub account with 'example.com' as a verified domain, GitHub could attest 'example.com seems to be a real user or organization that behaves well'. It would be similar to the web of trust concept in GPG, but technology is to the point where it could actually be built in a way that makes it usable. Money that you're spending, or the way you interact in well known communities, could have the side effect of bolstering your reputation everywhere.

My most feared solution would be a similar system of attestation, but using Passkey since it would solidify the role of the current big tech companies as the arbiters of everything online. For example:

    You look like a bot.  How do you want to prove you're human?
        Microsoft
        Google
        Apple
        Facebook

Those companies, as Passkey providers, would, for all intents and purposes, be your 'anchor identity' online and they'd be in a good position to attest to you behaving like a normal, non nefarious participant.

I think Apple would be the company that could sell that kind of change to normal users. It could be done in a way that's anonymous because all you really need is an attestation that says 'Apple certifies this user is in good standing'. Apple is very good at selling those kinds of changes as being privacy focused and I think their user base would go for it if it were framed as 'good people' (aka Apple device owners) getting a superior experience that isn't available to the 'bad people' (aka bots, bad actors, and outliers).

If it worked, Google would follow with Android. Anyone else large enough for their opinion of you to count (Microsoft, Facebook, etc.) could probably compete, but it doesn't work for startups or small, less known providers.

In my opinion, as soon as authentication moves to something like domains or digital signatures where 3rd party attestations become simple, we could see a lot of new ideas that focus on reputation and related solutions / services.