• 4am@lemmy.zip
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    20 hours ago

    This is fucking BAD you guys. Like, we’re being dog walked into a fucking wall here.

    Major Big Tech companies (and their Fortune 500 partners, and the smaller businesses they support) are ALL going to be asking for age verification for all their SaaS “cloud” offerings and be required to do so by law.

    If Linux is exempt from these laws then these services which we may all still be dependent on in some form or another will not work with Linux, since it doesn’t verify age.

    You won’t be able to bank or watch Netflix on Linux anymore and it will destroy adoption just as it’s going mainstream.

    • antianarchist@sopuli.xyz
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      13 hours ago

      I think you are confusing something. A tech company running proprietary code can and will ask for age verification. It does not matter if the user runs Windows, Linux, iOS, GrapheneOS.

      The law here makes sure that services, which are basically also open source, are not required to do the age verification check.

      So, you install Windows? Age check. You install Linux? No age check. Before even opening a browser. Then on Linux you open Netflix? Age check.

      So I fundamentally saw this actually as a good news.

      • 4am@lemmy.zip
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        18 hours ago

        The 2-4% of us who actually daily drive Linux will stand firm but it depends on how far the mandate goes. If you can’t access ANY financial, entertainment, or pron website without OS level age checks, how many of us will really want to do all our banking on paper?

        The real plot is to stop “line go up” for Linux. They know they can’t control it, but they also know if they just kill it outright then they will make enemies.

        Will normies install Linux if they can’t get on their banking website? Teenagers will say it sucks if it can no longer log into Steam. When grandma can’t verify to Gmail that she’s been an adult for the last 60 years she will want “the Windows” back.

        Intelligence agencies don’t want to make big, sweeping, draconian moves; that’s how you get social unrest (ask them how they know). They’re trying to boil this frog.

        • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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          5 hours ago

          “The tighter your grasp, the more systems will slip through your fingers.”

          Right now crypto is pretty much only for libertarians and money laundering.

          Video piracy is pretty much only for people who can’t stand a little bit of ads.

          Porn sites just ask if you’re over 18 and then show you whatever you want.

          Increasing the barrier to exit allows these services to enshittify further, but also gives normal people an actual reason to switch.