The Economics of Identity: Why Free Handles Are Worthless#

Every identity system faces the same trade-off: accessibility vs quality. Make identity free, and you get infinite spam. Make it expensive, and you exclude legitimate users.

Most platforms choose “free” because they confuse adoption with value. They optimize for user count, not user quality.

This is a mistake.

The Free Identity Trap#

When identity costs nothing to create, it becomes worthless to maintain.