Comment by pibaker

I'm a fan of separating the trusted compute levels for commercial and non-commercial uses/sides of the internet. I think we have to move in this direction.

As it stands today, doing business on ebay/craigslist/etc isn't that much different than doing it in a back alley in the bad part of town. Generally a bad idea but YMMV if you keep your wits about you. Of course it's your right to do business that way, but no one in their right mind thinks it's acceptable to do global commerce that way.

Commerce relies on legally enforceable contracts (both paper and EULAs), which ultimately rely on identity to be enforced. It's a bug, not a feature, that someone on the internet can steal my identity to purchase a product in my name and have it shipped wherever they want. It's a feature, not a bug, that my bank asks me for photo ID before I empty my account in person.

I'm not allowed to access banking computers, except occasionally and from within in a sandbox with proper credentials (ATM card for example). If, in the future my bank needs to do their compute inside my house on my phone, then it seems fair that there should be walls that keep me outside of their trusted compute.

That said, I am 100% behind keeping open purpose general computing free and available. Rooted devices, self built PCs etc all of it. I love it, saying this as a person who grew up building their own PCs and programming from a young age. I think that we all should be able to access the non-commercial side of the internet in any way we want, a true public square, warts, gutters and all. Hobbyists can do whatever they like as long as it doesn't touch commercial systems.

As I see it, the problem for most of us is that the social/fun side of the internet has largely been captured by commercial interests. Anything with a EULA should be considered a commercial site, since you're legally bound by a contract using it. As it stands today all the fun things on the internet would require enforced identity.

Maybe having a separate walled off "commercial internet with identity enforcement" will finally open the public's eyes as to the ramifications of the digital world we've built. And also allow us to individually take a stand and push back against the commercial interests through our daily choices of what sites we visit. Basically voting with your ID chip instead of your pocketbook. You can still do business in the gutter if you want to, but for the normies it will be easier for them to spot when they're in a back alley. And it gives parents options for keeping kids off of the anonymous side as as well.

I do think a Reddit with identity would be a much less toxic place. As long as the brave adventurers among us can still access the digital gutters like 4chan and other message boards.