[julienb_sea]

Well technically you do consent to sharing your information with reporting agencies every time you interact with a lender or issuer. I realize this is a technicality as we are essentially forced to do this in order to interact with the US primary financial system.

It's probably worth pointing out the alternative to centralized, reasonably deterministic credit reporting is basically hard dings (e.g. known missed payments) & bank statements and income. This locks credit availability even more directly to your wealth and income position. Credit reports, at least, are a broader model of behavior whose inputs are well understood and relatively easy to track with free apps like Credit Karma & other competitors.