3 ms·

My kids HATE YouTube kids. It's utterly devoid of actual content, and I suspect it's sole reason for existence is to force parents to help their children lie ab

My kids HATE YouTube kids. It's utterly devoid of actual content, and I suspect it's sole reason for existence is to force parents to help their children lie about their age so they can access actual content on real YouTube. Google's family features really are quite terrible... For example, with Google Family, kids can't log into Google Play Games which blocks most games on Android, once again giving parents the choice to lie about the kids age, shut off all parental controls or basically tell your kids, "no games until you are 14". Likewise with YouTube Music, kids under 14 cannot even use it. So if you buy a family subscription, your kids can't use it unless you tell Google your kids are 14. The whole experience is shabby, and I think they could do a lot better. It is almost as if they design family features to suck so completely and utterly that you have to bypass them... Also, for kids over 14, there's no way to block them from making purchases with the family payment method...

makomk 6y ago
The trouble is that due to COPPA and probably similar laws in other countries, there are huge legal headaches involved in offering any kind of online account to under-13s - especially one which is shared with a whole bunch of third parties like Google Play Games is every time you log into a game. So I can't imagine Google changing that any time soon. Even just offering content that under-13s might plausibly set up adult accounts to access exposes them to fairly substantial legal risk.
- indymike 6y ago
  I don't think you are understanding the issue: 1. Kid can't login to google play games and can't play some games and can't save progress in other games. 2. Kid gets parent to change their age or kid registers an adult google account outside of family controls. 3. Kid can now play games and save progress, etc. In all cases, parents lose controls and kid can spend money with impunity on family account (if you change their age).
  - detaro 6y ago
    And parents point is that if congress or the federal government comes knocking, Google can point and say "we offer a compliant kids account, the customer choose to break the ToS and lie to us! we can't do much against that!". Whereas if they allow something deemed "bad" on the official kids accounts, Google gets the blame. So it's easier for them to just do a safe-as-possible kids version, picking "safety" over usability.
    - indymike 6y ago
      At some point, this behavior will lead to lawsuits. Forcing kids to lie to get access to a game does not even begin to absolve you from your responsibility under the law. It does establish a pattern where you are not making a paid-for feature available. I thought when I paid for my family account that my kids would be able to actually use YouTube, games from the play store and unlimited YouTube Music. They could not do any of that unless I changed their ages. This is fraud, no matter how cutely you try to dress it up. This crap needs to stop.

makomk 6y ago

The trouble is that due to COPPA and probably similar laws in other countries, there are huge legal headaches involved in offering any kind of online account to under-13s - especially one which is shared with a whole bunch of third parties like Google Play Games is every time you log into a game. So I can't imagine Google changing that any time soon. Even just offering content that under-13s might plausibly set up adult accounts to access exposes them to fairly substantial legal risk.

indymike 6y ago
I don't think you are understanding the issue: 1. Kid can't login to google play games and can't play some games and can't save progress in other games. 2. Kid gets parent to change their age or kid registers an adult google account outside of family controls. 3. Kid can now play games and save progress, etc. In all cases, parents lose controls and kid can spend money with impunity on family account (if you change their age).
- detaro 6y ago
  And parents point is that if congress or the federal government comes knocking, Google can point and say "we offer a compliant kids account, the customer choose to break the ToS and lie to us! we can't do much against that!". Whereas if they allow something deemed "bad" on the official kids accounts, Google gets the blame. So it's easier for them to just do a safe-as-possible kids version, picking "safety" over usability.
  - indymike 6y ago
    At some point, this behavior will lead to lawsuits. Forcing kids to lie to get access to a game does not even begin to absolve you from your responsibility under the law. It does establish a pattern where you are not making a paid-for feature available. I thought when I paid for my family account that my kids would be able to actually use YouTube, games from the play store and unlimited YouTube Music. They could not do any of that unless I changed their ages. This is fraud, no matter how cutely you try to dress it up. This crap needs to stop.