I completely agree with a lot of what you said! I'm not against technology in general or think that things like email aren't useful.

I think my argument is harder to make for payment processors, but in the case of email, it is preferable to not need an email address to create an account (even if it's convenient to have the option), and have other identifiers that can be used, like OAuth using an existing account or phone number, for instance.

Or, like I said, even better if you don't even need to create an account to participate in a one-time transaction (instead of a service relationship) with an entity.