What's worse is that combined with the ruling in Mahmoud v Taylor, age verification can now be justified against anything considered "adult" or "pornographic" in nature - including LGBTQ+ storybooks, information on abortion or sexual health, discussion about HIV, or even just political dissidence if a state wants to reach particularly far. "Adult content" is nebulous and vague
on purpose, and one party is taking advantage of that to attack minority groups and undesirables.
The point isn't to defend sex work (though you absolutely should), it's that sex workers are just the first targets when it comes to authoritarian change like this. They're the canaries in the coal mines of free speech, and the fact they're screaming in venues like Wired or Hacker News should really give everyone cause for concern that their stuff is next, unless things change.
And on the topic of parenting, look, I hate to be that dinosaur, but age verification doesn't stop minors from accessing adult content: competent, aware adults do, or at the very least put things into context when mistakes happen. As a child of the 80s-2000s who was effectively babysat by technology in some form, STOP DOING THAT. It's bad for the kids, it's bad for the parent-child relationship, and it's offloading your responsibilities as a parent to other adults and entities who did not consent to accepting them. It's about acknowledging that you won't be able to shield them completely for harm, and preparing to put things into a healthy context when mistakes do happen rather than demanding everyone else be punished just so you can avoid temporary awkwardness. We don't need tighter laws in the name of protecting kids, we need parents to do so - and build a society where at least one parent is always accessible to children to oversee their development. It means building technology that puts parental needs above profit motives, creating software that's quick and efficient to force children off apps and back into the real world, rather than turning them into mindless zombies watching videos all day.
Laws punishing consenting adults to "protect kids" are ineffective at their stated goals, but highly effective at punishing threats to a given regime. It's why fascists and authoritarians weaponize sex so early in their regime change: it's all about control in the most intimate way, to normalize its creep elsewhere.