> What service or features would you pay for regarding the standalone provision of digital identity? None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not because it isn't a good idea or because it isn't valuable enough to pay for, but because identity is only valuable in a context and the value depends on the context. In my mind, it isn't the identity vouching that makes the service valuable, it is the context. As a consultant many of my clients must certify that I've taken anti-bribery and/or anti-money laundering training before letting me touch their IT systems. I complete what is essentially the exact same computer-based training and take almost the exact same certification test as many as a dozen times a year. My clients pay for the training and the test, as well as my time to take it. Between vendor fees and my hourly rates that's hundreds of dollars per client and thousands of dollars a year in aggregate. Any of these clients would gladly pay $100 per voucher if that met their compliance obligation. Alternatively, an identity that I use to post once or twice a year to a forum for bad jokes might be on the low end of what I might pay for. You wouldn't pay $100 at every sign-on to the joke forum, let alone $100 per year would you? If the identity provider vouches for both use cases, what's the right price? So to me a stand-alone identity is worthless. That identity bound to a context may be nearly worthless (if for example it gets me into the joke forum) or worth 3-figure sums per use (for example when it saves an even greater sum) depending on the context in which it is bound. Even in cases where the identity has high value, that value doesn't tend to accrue to me. As the person presenting the identity, I'm the one requesting access to something valuable not the one taking the risk. Whoever I present it to is the one with something to lose and has the greatest interest in paying for the assurance. There are cases in which I want to pay for an identity but those are usually where the entity offering the resource to which I am requesting access has exploitative monopoly power and can shift that cost off to me. For example, Facebook is a one-of-a-kind unicorn and if they decide you are subject to secondary ID verification you either provide it or lose your account. Typically what they ask for is something I've paid for - a government issued ID, a utility bill, a credit card account, etc. Even in those cases what I paid for was not the identity but the service with which it was bundled. The thing I'm presenting isn't an identity but simply the assurance that 2 or 3 other corporations or government entities have investigated me and converged on the same identity. Unless an identity provisioning business model is based on widespread existence of such exploitative relationships and wishes to normalize them, it seems to me that the *identity* itself is of zero value to me. The context is what's worth paying for and even then it's not me who benefits or would be willing to pay in those cases. There are edge cases in which I *am* the primary beneficiary. Many of those are more about reliable ephemeral identity. For example, Indiegogo is terrible about giving my identity away. Knowing what I do now about their egregious data custody practices, I would pay for an ephemeral identity that had an expiration date but in all other respects was solid enough to complete transactions on the site. Instead I pretty much stopped using that site and others which have the same problem. Rather than seeking fees to provide identities, consider perhaps a framework in which many different attribute providers can interoperate. For example, my bank, mobile phone operator, and several levels of government know enough about me to vouch for my demographic information. So I can make a claim that I'm over 18 to vote and they can vouch. Or I claim that I'm over 21 to order a mixed drink. Or I claim that I'm over 60 to get cheap seats at the movie theater. I don't need an identity in those situations, I need an assurance of an attribute about me. What makes it valuable to me is that a) I don't have to disclose my actual birthdate, just that I 'm old enough to meet the access requirement; b) that multiple attribute providers can and do participate; and c) that multiple relying parties participate. If all those conditions are met, I would pay to participate and maintain a folio of pre-vouched attributes. Kind regards, -- T.Rob T.Robert Wyatt, Managing partner IoPT Consulting, LLC +1 704-443-TROB (8762) Voice/Text From: Don Cameron [mailto:
] Howdy, To explore the case of data sovereignty online, I am doing user research for a media group and thought for your input: What service or features would you pay for regarding the standalone provision of digital identity? Thanks, Don |
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