VaultOro has manually accepted my documents after a day of failed automated verification attemps.
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According to Stephanie Murphy, there was a time you could get an account at CoinBase with only an email address. Really! Now a days not only do they demand your legal documents once but also get you to KYC multiple times, and turn on the web cam so they can see you.... Not only that, BitTrex asks you a bunch of financial questions like which is like a date with a gold-digger. The questions are is your income below such an amount or above, are you employed or not employed. Another exchange asked me whether I was a miner or not.
The costs of trading is not only the fees but also your privacy. There are various reasons I have passed up exchanges and once recently even employment on the cause of them demanding I upload my I.D., and that is because if they lose my ID I can become a victim of identity theft and that would likely cost me more than the value of all of my cryptos put together.
Then there is the also legitimate concern that someday, I may not be able to upload documents. With the world the way it has gone in the last two years, it wouldn't surprise me if I suddenly find myself unable to obtain my ID card or driver's license by 2022.
I used to trade $100 at a time. Now I have lowered it. I try $20, if they ask for documents or whatever, I can see whether it is worth doing or not. Or perhaps I am unable to withdraw which makes the trade useless to me. Testing it with $20, I can see how something works or doesn't work. Once the platform gains some trust I trade larger amounts, but immediately withdraw after trading. The sole exception being VaultOro because they have precious metals.
This is what we have to deal with these days.
@tatianamoroz