There was a lot of hype in the 1990ies about digital signatures as a replacement for paper contracts and specifically, replacing wet signatures. Many countries implemented e-signature legislation to regulate the related liability issues hoping to push e-commerce and e-government adoption.
After 15 years it is fair to state that the expectations associated with the hype were consistently disappointed and the future of this application looks grim. National eID-programs failed to exceed a threshold of 1% active users (E.g. Austria, Japan, Finland). See below for a more detailed look on Estonia.
Jane Witt wrote in 2001 "There is mounting evidence that trying to use asymmetric cryptography as a signature on a contract is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and the effort to get that square peg into that round hole has created a phenomenal sink hole into which countless individuals and organizations have poured vast resources with few tangible payoffs in sight."[1|http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lsiden/tutorials/signed-applet/ShockingTruth.html] Her far-sighted analysis is still valid ten years later.
Trying the reverse engineer the business model following points can be observed:
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