Who is “we”? Maybe the people operating the chat app have determined that it is in their businesses’ best interest to verify identity. I can certainly see it reducing costs for the business.
I am not suggesting all businesses be required to do it. But I do not see why businesses should be prohibited from doing it. If you do not want an identity linked service, then buy a website name, and start a business and do not require people to identify.
"We" in this context means the overall population of users on the web, including non-corporate users and individuals who are exercising their freedoms online.
We can't justify every architecture decision about the web via only business costs, if that was the case we'd make adblockers illegal and deprecate HTML. You need a stronger argument if you want me as a user to care about or support your business interests. If you want my support you have to show how this benefits the web overall, not just your company.
You keep arguing about a non-issue. Normal users do not need to verify with Discord. It's only for bot owners of popular bots to prevent the widespread abuse Discord saw.
I disagree that bot developers should be placed in a separate category from normal users, and I disagree that 100 servers is a meaningful place to draw the line that Discord is drawing.
The linked comment is incorrect to say that Discord only requires verification for specific permissions, Discord requires verification for bots who are in more than 100 servers regardless of what permissions they use. I think it's fairly obvious that verification for Discord bots is going to gradually expand and encompass more of the service, but maybe I'm just cynical from watching other companies do the same thing with their identity verification schemes.
More importantly, I disagree that identity verification is the best way for Discord to combat abuse. I think that Discord's moderation tools and server settings are lackluster. At best, I think identity verification is a an easy way for them to avoid improving those tools, at the cost of user privacy.
I don't think your comment changes anything about what I'm saying in regards to Discord, but regardless, I also want to point out that it's not just Discord we're talking about: we are seeing a trend towards more services online requiring real-world identities. So we can fight over whether Discord in specific should be grouped in with that trend (I think it should be), but even if you disagree on that point, it still seems pretty clear to me how Stripe's service is going to be used in the future. Do you feel identity verification is also a non-issue for services like Clubhouse and Facebook?
I think the fact that Stripe is advertising both Discord and Clubhouse as early partners says a lot about the types of services they think are going to be attracted to their product.
I think you're being too dogmatic about this. For me it's a perfectly valid use case for identity verification. It prevents a big problem and only affects an extremely tiny subset of users.
Is this a discussion about the architecture of the web? Or about specific websites? If Costco wants me to login to their website to buy things, or Facebook wants me to use real identity, that does not stop me from using alternatives that do not.
Am I entitled to alternatives that do not verify identity? Maybe the operating costs are too high?
Your proposal is for a government-run identity verification system.
The "we" in this context (ordinary users) also comprise the majority of voters and regulators who will ultimately decide how the system you propose is built and what restrictions it will have; and that is a group that is not solely motivated by your business interests -- so it is kind of important for you to be able to convince them that your system benefits them, and not just a few businesses.
Why should a Congressperson vote to build the system you propose instead of introducing a harsh privacy law that restricts which businesses are allowed to collect identification?
I think we can do both. Or at least restrict what a business can do with identification information that is mandatory, such as not being able to use it for marketing purposes or sold, and have it be temporary.
We're already living in a world where you have to "login with Facebook" to do many things, but at the very least you can currently still create a fake account if you have no other option. If reliable identity verification starts becoming commonplace, that option goes away.
I am not suggesting all businesses be required to do it. But I do not see why businesses should be prohibited from doing it. If you do not want an identity linked service, then buy a website name, and start a business and do not require people to identify.