>to push the age verification requirement off to the app store providers,

and makes more sense, Apple and Google have your credit card , or if you are a parent that bought soem phone for you child then at first boot up as a parent should be your job to setup a child account.

> at first boot up as a parent should be your job to setup a child account.

Something I would be 100% OK with is some regulation that at first boot, you have to present information about what parental controls are available on the device and ask if you'd like them enabled.

I haven't set up a phone in a hot minute, I only do it once every few years, is this something they already do?

I'd imagine there's a lot of cases where a parent buys a new phone and hands down the old one to their kid without enabling safety features. I don't know if there's a good way to help with that - maybe something like, whenever you go to set a new password, prompt "hey is this for a kid?" and go through the safety features again?

Just spitballing, that last one may not be a good idea, not really sure.

> Apple and Google have your credit card

They don't have mine.

Even if they did, having a credit card is not proof of age.

> if you are a parent that bought soem phone for you child then at first boot up as a parent should be your job to setup a child account

Setting up a "child account" shouldn't involve setting some age field. Setting up a "child account" should involve restricting permissions.

Why leave it to the OS or a company to decide what is "age appropriate"? Leave it to the parent to decide what the child should or should not have access to. Extra bonus: that same "child account" can then also be used for other restricted purposes. Want a guest account which limits activity? Want an incognito account? Want a sandbox account? None of these should require setting some age.