I thought it was amusing that you said Apple was a "stupid American company with American values", even though you're actually complaining about a UK law. You do know this isn't a thing in the US, right? Just your country?

you might not be aware, but UK law doesn't actually require Apple to do it. It is targetted at social networks. Even ofcom posted praising Apple for doing it even if they didn't need to. And yes, that law is stupid, but allowing only credit cards as a way to verify an account is also stupid.