> Except that none of those companies bother verifying one's identity if you're not actually paying for their services. I'm sure in this scenario, those compan

> Except that none of those companies bother verifying one's identity if you're not actually paying for their services. I'm sure in this scenario, those companies will be delighted to step fully into the role of CA including accepting money for identity vouching. > In that scenario, could I not just verify the bank's public key when I'm physically in one of their branch locations while opening an account? They could also verify my public key at the same time. That would allow for a direct line of trust. The same could apply to any company one deals with. No. The same couldn't apply to any company. My primary bank is online only. And how many times have you actually walked into an Amazon office? Or Paypal? Are people in Ohio supposed to fly to San Jose to get Paypal's public key when they create an account? Or are we going to wait for the post office to deliver a physical copy of Paypal's public key (and we'll just trust that whole transaction couldn't be compromised). Physical key exchange is simply not practical in most cases.