> the thought of requiring others to show their faces never occurred to me at all
I know you meant as a service provider, but as a avid IRC (and an online game that conventionally alt-tabbed into a irc-like chat window) chatter as a young preteen in the 90s and 00s, I made a lot of online friends that I would not discover what they looked like IRL for decades, some never. People I was gaming with in the 90s, for the first time, I would see what they looked like over FB in a group made for the now-almost-dead game in the 10s. It was like "swordfish - man, where are you now? I don't even know your real name to find ya. shardz - you look exactly like I would picture ya!."
I know you meant as a service provider, but as a avid IRC (and an online game that conventionally alt-tabbed into a irc-like chat window) chatter as a young preteen in the 90s and 00s, I made a lot of online friends that I would not discover what they looked like IRL for decades, some never. People I was gaming with in the 90s, for the first time, I would see what they looked like over FB in a group made for the now-almost-dead game in the 10s. It was like "swordfish - man, where are you now? I don't even know your real name to find ya. shardz - you look exactly like I would picture ya!."
Just some musings.