This is a nonsense take that gets perpetuated over and over. For some reason.

Purchasing alcohol or buying a car is not the same as verifying your age on an internet property. They aren't even comparable. This is just as dumb as saying "well you have to verify your age to go into a bar". Sure, but does the bartender or salesman who sells you the alcohol completely remember every pixel of your photo or video selfy, permanently? Or do they just remember your face more generally?

The problem with these age verification laws is that they harm everybody, adults and kids. They don't do anything to protect kids and their sole purpose is a way for governments to suppress things they don't like. Any age verification technology (be it age estimation or similar) has a permanent record of the photo ID or video selfies (or whatever you use to prove your age) that you give it. Forever. If these systems didn't have those records, the result would be you having to verify your age every time you visit the website. There is a massive, massive difference between getting alcohol at a bar, or going to a strip club or similar, and providing your photo ID to a bouncer or bartender, who probably won't remember your ID after 5 minutes, versus a computer which permanently remembers it. That is the differentiator.