I think the answer is quite simply: Follow the money. General-purpose computing is scary to big, soulless corporations. They want you to rely on them, not to be

I think the answer is quite simply: Follow the money. General-purpose computing is scary to big, soulless corporations. They want you to rely on them, not to be able to do stuff yourself. (They want to keep that power for themselves.) Age verification is the quickest road to ending general-purpose computing, because it plays on people's knee-jerk emotions. It won't do it by itself, but it'll goes a long way towards it.