Or are there countries where IDs and maybe phone numbers are required before making purchases physically? Imagine how strange it would be to present your ID before buying or selling in physical world. Not sure I've ever been required to present ID before buying or selling, even physical foreign currencies offline. The kyc phenomenon seems to be peculiar to online world and bank transactions.
I think human right to privacy shouldn't be violated in anyway unless the human is involved in serious crimes or some suspicious activities. And even when ID becomes necessary, it should be handled with care to prevent it from going into the wrong hands.
By the way, the kyc issues could make thriving online economically alot difficult for people in certain remote places who probably prefer to have little to zero contact with modern world. This are the kind of people crypto would be more suitable for, unfortunately they will be denied access to lots of cryptocurrency exchanges in existence today.
The laws are different on each country, but there are some countries that for big purchases you cannot use cash or you need to identify yourself, and this is done in order to curb money laundering and other similar crimes, so identifying yourself before a purchase is in fact very common, it is just that we have not reached the point in which you will have to identify yourself for every single purchase no matter how small it is, something that we are already seeing on the online world.