[drdaeman]

Identities and accounts are two separate matters.

Accounts can only be some of identity's credentials. You are not your email address (and you should never be considered so), but your email provider can optionally act as one of trusted third parties who can assert your identity. Not the other round.

Also, you can't really own a domain name — you can only rent it from your domain registrar, in almost a same manner you rent your email account. And the idea of paying for keeping my own identity somehow frightens me.

[trhtrsh]

You can pay for many years in advance, and you can register for auto-renewal.

Paying to keep your identity is far better than borrowing it from someone who has made no promises to you.

[drdaeman]

Well, if possible, I'd really prefer to actually posess my identity (like I possess my GPG keypair) and be the authoritative source of it, not lease it.

I really don't want others to define who I am, and prefer them to merely assert my own definition of myself.

Unfortunately, modern trends of the Web is to make things work in exactly the opposite way.

(Original comment was edited from one-liner to a more verbose explaination.)