I'd say that anger is better directed towards the legislators in charge of creating these absurd policies, not the folks at System76. It's not reasonable to expect a company to sacrifice its entire business on a moral battlefield.

Right, but in turn it is absolutely reasonable and good for consumers to threaten a company with (legal) harm or extinction on a moral battlefield.

Age attestation (edited) is the law now in California. Noncompliance can mean stiff penalties. If you don't like it, write your Congressman.

*attestation, not verification

Which means an OS must have a parental controls API, and that's all if means.

No it doesn't. It might lead to that someday, but it isn't that far yet.

That is literally what the California and Colorado laws say. Have you read them?

Have you?

To my knowledge they require the OS to have an API for websites and services to access a determination of the age range from.

This is a far cry from the breadth of what a "parental control API" would entail even if it would be part of such a thing.

Indeed. It's basically bool AreParentalControlsEnabled();

The way you enable them is by the root user typing a number less than 18.