The mistake, in my opinion, is to insist on connecting identities across devices, and across meat space and cyberspace. I don't have any answers, but do know that Kim Cameron's seven laws of identity[1] are the best story I've heard on this.
[1] http://www.identityblog.com/stories/2004/12/09/thelaws.html
Apple's fingerprint integration is convenient enough to be dangerous: once you enable it, it is hard to go back.
(Although actually to take a step back...owning the credit card channel still leaves the field wide open for the billions of people who don't have credit cards)