> But I am curious why one would need to login to a website in order to survive?

They use bank like Ally or Discover with no physical branches.

They use a mortgage provider like Rocket mortgage with no physical branches.

They use a medication delivery service with no physical customer facing pharmacies.

They have an employer that only facilitates reimbursement for expenses via online tools.

etc...

I guess "survive" has a sliding scale, but if I lost access to critical accounts... my life is going to FUCKING SUCK in a non-trivial and very impactful way almost immediately, on many fronts.

And if your answer to that problem is "well, just call them"... then we're right back to the point the article is making: "An account’s security is still dictated by the weakest recovery method"

Passkeys aren't a meaningful improvement in security - assuming you do actually have decent password hygiene like a password manager.