Comment by AnthonyMouse

> I just see obstacles that are like speed bumps in parking lots.

If you multiply a small inconvenience by the entire general population, you are causing a lot of damage.

And the damage to specific people or industries is significantly worse. There are legitimate things people may need to buy that would be dangerous to have associated with their identity, e.g. because it reveals something about their religion or health or sexual preferences. If you want to anonymously pay for any of those things to be sent to you in an unlabeled box at a numbered mailbox so that you don't have to risk someone seeing you buying it in person with cash, you should be able to do that. If some schmucks you've never even met have added some erroneous data to a database or you share the same name with someone rowdy, you shouldn't be endlessly aggrieved like an outlaw by financial institutions that aren't even allowed to tell you why.

> They also don’t really “work.” But they are needed

If something doesn't work then it isn't needed.