So let’s do a little thought experiment. Which of the outcomes is more likely to happen:

1. People somehow, in big enough parts of the world to overcome the “Brussels Effect”, manage to avoid age verification laws getting passed.

2. Laws get passed, but because it was likely to be the case, the tech industry prepared and has an age verification system ready to go that’s “as good as possible” with regards to privacy.

3. Laws get passed, and because the tech industry spent more time fighting it than preparing for it, they’re now forced to implement something suboptimal.

4. Laws get passed, and the tech industry refuses to comply, then more laws get implemented stipulating exactly how the age verification system has to work, and it’s much worse than anything they could’ve come up with had they not been stubborn.

Right now, I think option 1 is so unlikely as to be safe to ignore as an option. And from what dialogue I’m reading, 2 is unlikely as well because some tech bros still think that code can win over laws. I just hope that the stick gets extracted from some of the relevant asses before option 3 turns into option 4.