It's more like losing access to a bar that allowed random people to meet in private rooms, and didn't check they weren't giving access to minors, and didn't check inside the private rooms to prevent sexual abuse.
You’ve made a poor analogy, though, since obviously it’s very trivial for a bar to validate age at the door. If such a thing were easy for Omegle to do, I’m sure they would.
Unfortunately, that requires a return to the days when most people's primary computing device was capable of acting as a web server, and computer literacy implied empowerment: that might be tricky, but if we work hard enough I'm sure we can get there.
Even knowing their age at all is giving up some privacy.
If it can be done at small scale, it will get sold to data brokers and exploited at large a scale
It's usually obvious if you can have a short conversation with the person in question. Throughout my childhood escapades, I'm certain that most, if not all, the responsible adults I interacted with knew pretty much exactly how old I was. (I'd managed to navigate a legal loophole that, I believe, still exists in GDPR today, so they weren't required to kick me off – but while I was treated as an equal, I wasn't treated the same way I'm treated now.)
> If it can be done at small scale, it will get sold to data brokers and exploited at large a scale
That's quite illegal, and quite easy to detect (just give slightly different data to everyone and see what leaks). Most people don't commit crimes: individuals just don't have the kinds of incentive to buy and sell people's personal data that organisations like Facebook, Taboola and Oracle have. (And what would they get for betraying these people's trust? $30? Sure… I'd totally go for that.)
This bar also had special partitions in each room that were practically indestructible, allowing sound and light through but protecting from physical harm.
[EDIT: I don't mean to imply that the check is easy! The reality of Omegle's difficulties is understood. I'm just riffing on the metaphor]
A library is in public view.
Omegle was in private, away from public view.
No one needs to keep anyone off Omegle now, it is gone.
And yet heinous acts of abuse/violence/etc have occurred in both.
By your logic, we should pave all the parks and burn down the libraries.