Continued from part 1
In the envisioned society in which all parties one might want to do business with participate in the WoT, there are many ways to gather deeper information from it beyond merely what is said in the ratings; for instance, how well connected a subject is to the evaluator's own network, relative to how that subject ought to be connected based on his claimed history. Or one might draw completely different conclusions about the subject from what a rater claims, based on knowledge of the rater. To not be present in the WoT at all, once of a sufficient maturity to protect one's key, is to be an un-person, an outcast, perhaps even more so than today's "undocumented" or "stateless" persons.
Even in its present form, many of the benefits of the WoT are already available; it has enabled substantial volumes of online commerce, and indeed it serves as a kind of filter for people who are both sufficiently intelligent and aware to find out about it, and who seek to accept the burdens and reap the rewards of a world of personal responsibility. If the concept works as well as is claimed and participants use it diligently, along with the other elements of economy, then it's not a stretch to imagine WoT-society continuing to grow in wealth and power until it's the only game in town.