> The issue is and will always remain reselling the age verification tokens. The entire system is pretty pointless.
I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit.
> Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so.
Maybe? Kids can just buy alcohol or cigs or drugs from criminals today. But most can't or don't. Some do, and we accept that as a society. And we punish the criminals who enable it.
This isn't like illegal drugs, where criminals have a massive market (adults with cash). A black market catering to only minors isn't very lucrative.
Moreover social media's network effects work in our favor. If most kids can't join, their friends are less motivated to get in.
> "I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit."
I assume these scratch cards would be available everywhere Lotto scratchcards are - supermarkets, gas stations, convenience stores, tobacconists, newsagents - because it needs to be available and convenient for everyone to agree to it.
Since the ID is not recorded anywhere during purchase, some bored person can drive around and buy dozens of them on the same day for non-valid use cases.
But rate-limiting one per site means a valid use cases are blocked - adult kid wants their parents and grandparents to sign up to a new social network (Signal-style) and mom says she will get everyone a token while doing the shopping. She can't. Adult carer tries to buy a token for themselves and the person they care for in one visit. They can't. Small business employer wants employees to use a new WhatsApp style chat app and buy tokens for their employees. They can't.
None of the design stops mom-who-doesn't-care from buying a token and giving it to whiny-kid-who-wont-shut-up for their "FortnighTik thingy", or kid from asking grandma for a "scratch off token" for Christmas, or whatever.
You're correct. Rate-limiting has the potential to inconvenience some legit buyers.
> None of the design stops mom-who-doesn't-care from buying a token and giving it to whiny-kid-who-wont-shut-up for their "FortnighTik thingy", or kid from asking grandma for a "scratch off token" for Christmas, or whatever.
And nothing stops parents from giving their kids beer and cigarettes today, just to shut them up. But they mostly don't.
The point of my proposal is: do age verification as stringently (or loosely) and with as much privacy preservation as we currently do for alcohol and tobacco. The goal being to forestall more intrusive measures, which are really meant to expand the surveillance powers of states and corporations but are dressed up as "age verification to protect children". This proposal, or something like it, will satisfy the median voter that children are being protected without compromising anyone's privacy or anonymity.
I forgot to mention in my original post. I'd also rate limit purchases. Maybe only allow purchasing one per visit.
> Kids will just have some hoops to jump through, and they will be very motivated to do so.
Maybe? Kids can just buy alcohol or cigs or drugs from criminals today. But most can't or don't. Some do, and we accept that as a society. And we punish the criminals who enable it.
This isn't like illegal drugs, where criminals have a massive market (adults with cash). A black market catering to only minors isn't very lucrative.
Moreover social media's network effects work in our favor. If most kids can't join, their friends are less motivated to get in.