So would I. An identify/human verification API provided by USPS would be awesome.

It takes 3-5 business days for a letter to get from one desk to mine, that won't work when you want to sign-up for your next impulsive Reddit link click-through.

There is id.me though (a non-governmental company, but effectively endorsed by the US federal gov), but because I highly value pseudonymity I don't want to use my on real, government-linked, identity for frivolous things - and I'm not aware of anyone like id.me nor any other identity-providers offering a "human-attestation-only" service that wouldn't share any actual PII like my real-name.

It's a shame that web-of-trust schemes never took-off (and I can't see how they could, honestly), I gather some schemes had a mode where a group of known people (in good standing) could collectively vouch for an anonymous person/node, but that system could be easily gamed too. Is this an intractible problem?

The identify / human verification API can be instantaneous, like pretty much all others (after you have verified your identity to the USPS and received a mechanism to verify yourself).

And it also does not have to reveal identity, just whether or not you exist in USPS’s database as a real person.

> I'm not aware of anyone like id.me nor any other identity-providers offering a "human-attestation-only" service that wouldn't share any actual PII like my real-name.

Because if anyone ever offered such a service, suddenly people would no longer be incentivized not to share their account with other people. Right now, the threat of PII exposure is what keeps people accountable and selling less of their accounts to the highest bidder.