A person's reaction to the Jumio issue may depend on whether they have already encountered Jumio. For example, anyone who has a verified account on Bittrex or Uphold has already taken the plunge and given Jumio their identity details. Like some other commenters, I find the notion of centralized ID-proving to be at odds with the goals of crypto. It's a process that is easily exploited by would-be totalitarian entities. However, it has become a fact of modern life. Whether it will become "normal for everyone" or be "rejected by the masses" remains to be seen.
You may know the name John Perry Barlow, who died yesterday. He spent much of his life trying to keep Big Brother's hands off the Net. "Barlow’s lasting legacy is that he devoted his life to making the Internet into “a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth . . . a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.”"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/john-perry-barlow-internet-pioneer-1947-2018Yet here we are.
I can see both sides of the Jumio issue. Tony's (and Jumio's) notion of proving identity to strangers without giving them identity details has some appeal, but it requires a trusted third party (Jumio, in this case) which can potentially leak or be hacked. So far, I'm not persuaded to link any Byteball account(s) I may or may not have with Jumio, but I'm watching with interest.
Good points.
Identifying is voluntary and should stay that way. It's useful for people who want to interact with companies that require to know (certain aspects of) the identity of their customers, for whatever reason (could be legal, e.g. in the case of ICO's).
I agree tho that the fundamental strength of crypto is it's total independance of any regulatory agency.
Still there will be points where this free world and the regulated world meet. I for one have no issue with interacting with regulated entities (like Bittrex, where I have a verified account), so I welcome this option.