[Duff]

It's more like a restaurant hiring a third party to handle billing without you needing to collect cash or hold consumer receivables. (ie. credit cards)

Who do you trust more to control who can use your identity? A gossip blog like Gawker Media? Or a place like Google, Verisign, etc who employs real security experts who know what they are doing.

I have a PayPal token so that I can use two-factor authorization for my account. Since Verisign PIP is powering that solution, I also now have a two-factor openid that I can use anywhere. So if I decide that I want to have additional protection for my StackOverflow or Tripit accounts -- I can.