I think your idea of certificates handed out by government is horrifying, but I agree it seems to be the only way to guarantee that you are who you say you are - even though it comes with several potential avenues for abuse.
I think we'll see two "tiers" of internet.
One tier will be for day to day usage for "normal" users - banking, social media, news, etc. A tier that you digital ID will be used to verify you are who you are, and others can be assured that they're talking to the person they say they are - though there are flaws in that system if someone can get a hold of another persons' certificate.
The other tier would be the unverified internet - things like boilerplate/startup communities, activities you don't want your digital ID tied to, something to still allow people to remain semi-anonymous on the internet if choosing to.
Not sure if this will be what actually happens or if governments just slowly decide to force people to use only the verified internet while trying to access the "outernet" (or whatever buzzword they'd use) would be met with scrutiny and potentially criminal charges.
Well hopefully the system could be semi-anonymous. So reddit doesn't get your identity, they are just able to prevent you from making another account (or perhaps limit it to a few accounts per real person). If they are nice, they don't even need to track which accounts belong to the same person.
Of course there is a lot of space for abuse. And it would unfairly lock many/most people out, because services can only accept certificates from the governments they trusts.
I think we'll see two "tiers" of internet.
One tier will be for day to day usage for "normal" users - banking, social media, news, etc. A tier that you digital ID will be used to verify you are who you are, and others can be assured that they're talking to the person they say they are - though there are flaws in that system if someone can get a hold of another persons' certificate.
The other tier would be the unverified internet - things like boilerplate/startup communities, activities you don't want your digital ID tied to, something to still allow people to remain semi-anonymous on the internet if choosing to.
Not sure if this will be what actually happens or if governments just slowly decide to force people to use only the verified internet while trying to access the "outernet" (or whatever buzzword they'd use) would be met with scrutiny and potentially criminal charges.