Comparing today's internet to the 90s is hardly fair. It has become extremely predatory, and most places youth gravitate towards are controlled by algorithms with the goal of getting them hooked on the platforms to make them available for manipulation by the platform's customers.

Of course, there will be stories of smart kids doing amazing things with access to vast troves of information, but the average story is much sadder.

The EU is working on a type of digital ID that an age-restricted platform would ask for, which only gives the platform the age information and no further PII.

Companies (not talking about system76) amazingly always find the shittyest interpretations of their obligations to make sure to destroy the regulations intention as much as they can. The cookie popups should have been an option in the browser asking the user whether they want to be tracked and platforms were meant to respect this flag. Not every site asking individually, not all this dark pattern annoyance. It's mind-blowing that that was tanked so hard.