You are correct as that is the whole point of that idea where you bind your ID to an account. The entire reason thats a suggestion (not that i like it at all either) is because of the fact anyone can evade:

• an account ban with a new account
• network ban with a vpn
• hardware ban with spoofed mac addresses, etc

In what other method is there to prevent some person from evading a ban? To answer your initial question, that is the reason. If Kenerl level anticheats are not acceptable then this is one of the only options left that allows us to bind some person to an account and actually enforce a permaban.

Yes:

• fake government IDs are a thing
• cracked/hacked/spoofed clients are a thing.

But otherwise, there is NOTHING you can tie an account to a person that's avaliable to enforce a ban. Nothing is unhackable, or unspoofable. Literally a cat n mouse game that has no winners.

Even if it's worse in your opinion than having kernal level anti-cheat, it's picking between two deadly poisons. IMO i just dont play games that require anticheat, or play any competitive games. too toxic and stressful for me personally to even install something like that.

Technically Valve themselves is that. That have VAC-anticheat, which is connected to your account. unless you get money into your account soley through gift cards, they have your card info, or paypal. They have drm, but not kernel level. your CC has your legal name, and billing address. About as Government ID as it gets with honestly ANY game with microtransactions in it that allows you to put raw CC details in it.

// as a side thought/rant //

if it's super necessary to play/engage with those games, why not have a seperate OS specifically for gaming? either to dual boot, or seperate pc altogether, and just pipe the display output as a PIP or use as a second monitor? then its seperated and not compromising of your actual OS?

It also comes down to other loooooads of other factors, but (IMO) it comes down the fact that companies overcharge, (insert other xyz reasons), which people dont want to pay full price or at all for so they pirate, which make companies put more and more invasive drms/anticheats, which snowballs. especially with online stuff, it's because of the many bad actors (and with how lucrative that business is) that constantly abuse competitive games that IMO originated in good faith, but have had to clamp down super hard that made their protections soo bad. It's the only way they can protect their playerbase, game, and sales reliably (insert denuvo controversies here).

TLDR: Pick a deadly poison, its all bad ideas. Imo, dont play live service games, and play more indie stuff.

Point taken. Still, I think designing the game around positive things like team work and rewarding experiences is important.

I can't see why server side solutions won't work when implemented properly. High ping? Just provide more servers and allow players to filter that out or do that automatically.