>it is nothing like buying alcohol and tobacco

The intent of the "I don't crack open a beer.." post was to draw a comparison between "show ID at physical store then later open and drink the beer at home" and "show ID at physical store then later submit the token and watch the porn at home".

>and shares the basic features which are different and more intrusive

How so?

Are you maybe assuming that some entity (the ID issuer? the physical store?) would track an association between the ID shown and the token purchased?

I suppose anything's possible, but that's not how the alcohol system works: when I show ID to purchase alcohol, the cashier looks at it and hands it back to me without recording anything. The same could work in this case, except the product changing hands is a scratch card carrying a number I type into a form on a website later.

(fwiw I don't particularly support age verification; I'm just thinking about how strong your criticisms of this proposal are.)

(OP described a single-site token with a 1 year lifetime, but I'm not sure what I think of the single-siteness. Seems like it means either every site prints its own cards, distinguishable from other site's cards, meaning the cashier can judge one's taste in adult entertainment (just like they can judge one's taste in alcohol I suppose) and when a site folds, its cards are landfill. Alternatively, there's a central authority printing the cards and tracking which have been consumed and for which site and when they expire. And that doesn't seem great either.)

> I suppose anything's possible, but that's not how the alcohol system works: when I show ID to purchase alcohol, the cashier looks at it and hands it back to me without recording anything

On the other hand, I bought Pseudoephedrine from a Publix at home when I was living in GA, left it by mistake, flew to Puerto Rico and was denied in a CVS because there is a nationwide database.

There's no reason for each site to roll their own card provider or for there to be a central authority. There could easily be 5 or 7 companies providing this product and sites could choose to accept any or all of them.