Well written, and I agree with you on everything you wrote.

That said, "the internet" is a large place, and I think parents would find more clarity thinking of it the way they think of a physical place. In my mind, letting my son loose on the internet is not like letting him run around the woods unsupervised (which he does). It is more like dropping him off in a large city every night.

As you said, guidance is imperative, and in the real world we would not give only verbal guidance. We would, if we lived in the city, walk our kid to the library, the museum, the coffee shop, the park. We would talk about what parts of town to avoid. We would talk about what "free" means and about not trusting strangers and not just going into any door.

That last part is tricky. On the internet, every link is a door into a neighborhood, and there are a lot of neighborhoods even adults are not well prepared for.