alt Hacker NewsAn empty account and an account with a year of history have very different weights in this - most people already have an account tied to their legal name, paid for with a credit card in that same legal name. Throw in some geo-location, browser fingerprinting, etc. to disambiguate the surprisingly rare case of two customers with the exact same name.
For a paid product, it's really not that hard to already have a fairly solid idea of what's going on - this just ensures that a responsible adult has gone through a clear process of signing off on the identity for this specific service, rather than a kid with their parent's credit card.
> to disambiguate the surprisingly rare case of two customers with the exact same name
I see you have an uncommon name.
My first+last are shared by about 20,000 people in the US. From 2005-2020 I was unable to check-in for airlines online or even at the kiosk at the airport. I had to wait on line for baggage check-in despite never checking a bag, and they'd take my ID into the back room and delay me for 15 minutes and whisper and glare at me the whole time. Thankfully I can finally fly like a normal person again.
When I worked at a large company, there were four other people with the same first name, middle initial, and last name.
There is nothing surprising or rare about two customers having the same name.