This outcome was always obvious. The internet is too big. You can degrade the sites that are legitimate enough to follow the law, but that's just a drop in the bucket in the sea of porn.

Hence why the UK govt wants to ban VPNs and have our own lil internet firewall

I think the point is that porn is decentralized enough rather than the internet too big. Regulating just a handful of sites would deal with like 95% of social media, but you could regulate hundreds of porn sites and have basically 0 effect.

The logical endpoint of this is that nations campaign on "internet sovereignty" and begin whitelisting the internet with strict restrictions and licensure of who can open up new sites. This is reportedly occurring to a limited extent in russia: https://www.intellinews.com/russia-s-mobile-internet-whiteli...

They're going to build an internet where every device must be attested and logged in with your personal state identification.

They're not just stopping filthy, sinful porn. They're making sure wrongthink will be traced to the source and jailed. You can't be allowed to have a job or be banked if you're saying harmful things.

You exist to work and die and be a good little ward of the state. No stepping out of line. You do not get to live as the elites live.