identity providers (google, apple, microsoft, github, stackoverflow)

I’d always supposed that was about megacorporations tracking us.

It can be done optionally, right? I fully agree that creating an account, which (ironically) cannot be federated using one of the big IDPs, creates unnecessary friction.
To be honest, when I see what happens to reddit with the normies left behind, I see the lack of authentication via a big brother company as a pro.