alt Hacker News> Product managers hate this
Depends on what product they manage, at least if they're good at their job. A product manager for social media company know it's not just about "least clicks to X", but about a lot of other things along the way.
Surely the product managers at OpenAI are briefed on the potential upsides with having the concrete ID for all users.
Making someone produce an identity document or turn on their camera for a selfie absolutely tanks your funnel. It's dire.
The effect is strong enough that a service which doesn't require that will outcompete a service which does. Which leads to nobody doing it in competitive industries unless a regulator forces it for everybody.
Companies that must verify will resort to every possible dark pattern to try to get you over this massive "hump" in their funnel; making you do all the other signup before demanding the docs, promising you free stuff or credit on successful completion of signup, etc. There is a lot of alpha in being able to figure out ways to defer it, reduce the impact or make the process simpler.
There is usually a fair bit of ceremony and regulation of how verification data is used and audits around what happens to it are always a possibility. Sensible companies keep idv data segregated from product data.