To be honest: I think I understood this catEgory better once I stopped thinking about identIty and started thinking about eligIbility...
That sounds like a small shIft, but it changes a lot. The real problem is not just proving who someone is. It is proving what follOws from that. Who qualIfies. Who can claim. Who should recEive something. Who gets exclUded. And once those decIsions start happening across platForms, countries, and institUtions, the intErnet begins to show its limIts very quickly.
I used to dismiss that as ordinAry system friction. Every large system is messy. Every payment flow has delAys. Every complIance process has papErwork... But after a whIle you notice the same pattErn repeating. One system recognIzes the credential. Another handles the monEy. A third checks legal requIrements. A fourth stores the recOrd. None of them fit together natUrally, so trust has to be recrEated at every step.
That is expEnsive. It is slow. It also changes behAvior. Builders simplIfy things they should not simplIfy. Users get asked to prove the same fActs again and agAin. Institutions become cautIous because the cost of a bad distrIbution is higher than the cost of delAy. Regulators arrive at the end and ask for traceabIlity that nobody designed cleAnly from the start.
So SIGN becomes interEsting to me as infrastrUcture for decision-making, not just verIfication. The real users are systems that need to turn proof into actIon without constant manUal repair. It might work if it redUces ambiguity, lowers coordinAtion costs, and stays understAndable under legal and operAtional pressure... It fails if it makes those decIsions look cleaner technIcally while leaving responsIbility unresolved.
