Regular people have been carrying house keys and/or car keys around for practically their entire lives. A physical key for their computers wouldn't be weird, except it's different than what they're used to.
This. People assume weak security. They think if they lose their house or car key they can get in some other way, or a locksmith can “fix it”, or they can order another car key at the dealer.
The concept that if I lose my key I am totally screwed doesn’t align.
Case study: An Ex who got fully locked out of her phone by forgetting what new passcode she changed to, had no idea what her google account password was, either.
So in the end she was locked out of the encrypted backups and had to wipe the phone, losing photos and a lot of notes. Despite all this, somehow expected that a quick ring to the <Cell Provider> call center could get her files unlocked and restored. Once that proved fruitless, that a call to Google would do the trick.
Car keys are getting a lot more troublesome these days. I see an analogy... if you lose your security device you can pay $XX to get on a call and verify with an account security rep. Of course this can be deepfaked nowadays. Maybe you need to do password recovery in person with a notary!
Notary public... the new digital locksmith for password recovery.
You don't need to regularly plug your spare house key into your computer to update the password DB on it. And even with spares people still get locked out and need locksmiths.
People already get locked out of their homes regularly. Imagine how much more frequently that would happen if they keychain also had a security key they had to take out regularly.
