The fediverse has been around for well over a decade in some form or another. It never caught on with society enough to make a difference. And unfortunately, the fediverse has now developed such a distinct culture of its own, Highly Online people with distinctive political and social shibboleths, that it even alienates many tech idealists around the world, let alone the general public.
As far as the "tech idealists," a lot of them seem to want every space to be 4chan where they can be racist trolling assholes without consequence. And those folks have Nostr.
Sites and apps don’t need your actual national ID, just to know that you have one. I think it could be possible to have 3rd party verification services that don’t know where the verification request is coming from, thus preserving privacy on both sides.