[ezfe]

You could ask the same about Apple Pay: "Is the end Goal to make Apple Pay the only payment method supported on the internet and kill credit card numbers"

Not only is there nothing to support your claim, there's no reason to believe this would be the next step if your claim was accurate. Instead, they'd just...require ID on the internet, it's not like that's not currently possible.

[leecb]

Is the end Goal to make conversation only accessible via the telephone and kill off in-person conversation?

[Talanes]

Verifying pictures of people's physical ID cards is much more involved than using a digital standard.

It may be a big leap to say that implementing a Digital ID standard means that an ID-locked internet is the end goal, but it is a necessary step to reach that goal.

A much bigger flaw in their reasoning is that it's unclear who "they" is. Apple? Why would they care beyond maybe locking their own services behind ID? Government? Because they don't seem to be even making a uniform push to get things implemented.

[sneak]

There’s lots to support his claim. You can’t use Homepods without an iCloud account, you can’t get an iCloud account without an Apple ID, and you can’t get an Apple ID without providing a phone number and email address.