I agree. This is just recycled Tipper Gore fearmongering by a company trying to make money by pushing the industry to adopt a technology they get to license.

I don’t know if any cases where a software company has been sued over this kind of thing. As far as I know, it’s entirely voluntary and done primarily for optics. My concern is that the industry - from the software production shops to the retailers - have a defense that they’re using industry accepted best practices for controlling access. If snake oil gets accepted as a “best practice” by popular acclaim - especially if the “harm” is an unjustifiable and unquantifiable feeling - I think it will distort the market.

To be clear, my face would get a “why the fuck are you still playing games, old man?” response rather than asking me to get my parents’ permission. And I absolutely am far more concerned about our ecological suicide, the destruction of our civil rights, and creeping authoritarianism around the world. This is a grift that, in the larger scope of things, amounts to an ingrown hair on a patient with pancreatic cancer.

What I’m saying is that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t roll our eyes at it before moving on.