I don't think Google considers such legislation to be their enemy. It would effectively kill F-Droid and other third-party app distribution methods, and would fully lock them in a place of high power over their platforms and pull the ladder up beneath them, and nobody would be able to blame Google for it. I mean, why would anybody submit their ID to a brand new unproven app store? Seems quite risky, better to just use Google Play

Not a good idea to enourage that sort of behavior though, because the same tools can embolden them and can be used to pull out of say California if it pushes for a strong pro consumer legislations.

Corporations don’t act on the moral principles regardless of what their PR/marketing department says. It is ultimately decided on how laws affect their bottomline.

They wouldn't pull out of California. It's 1/5 of the US economy and would leave a gaping opening for a competitor to gain a stronger foothold there. You're right it's about money not principles but that's exactly why the threat would be empty. They'd probably lobby congress to try and make it illegal for the states to enact the protection and do some performative annoyances instead.

They might try to make an example out of a smaller state, but since they aren't selling food or fuel or heart pills it isn't like the state is going to collapse without access to Meta properties.

what would those companies do with the infrastructure in AZ? serve clients in other states? I imagine the AZ legislature would have some levers they could pull to make those existing datacenters less effective or more costly to run.

Also because the companies are beholden to shareholders and their financial best interest. cutting off millions of clients to make a political statement is not in the companies best financial interest and would likely result in a shareholder lawsuit.

These companies can't just pull out of a state like Arizona very easily even if they wanted to. Many of the major tech players have a presence in Tempe or Scottsdale- not to mention the defense work that happens throughout the state. AZ is no California but it's silly to act like it's an economy tech is ready or able to easily write off.

Why would big tech care? Age gating is probably good for them, and they won’t want the market share loss.

A total pull out is what big tech threatens when government is impacting on their profit margins, not working in their favour.

Exactly, this will just lead to regulatory capture, where only the big platforms thrive and they are periodically “nudged” to push government supported viewpoints, like what happened to TikTok.

> What am I missing?

Big tech are going to be the ones selling the verified ID solutions and the laws are going to effectively make it mandatory. There’s a potential future where we’ll all be paying for a subscription to a verified ID system that we don’t want.

Big tech is probably lobbying for it behind our backs.

>Serious question: why can't Meta, Google, and friends just decide not to serve Arizona?

I'll answer your serious question with one of my own. What incentive would Meta, Google and friends have to "decide not to serve Arizona"?

What is the business model of these companies? To make you view ads and charge advertisers more for "targeted" ads. Having age (which ends up being ID) verification gives them more tools to "target" ads and thus can charge more for the ad space they sell.

I'd say that these folks would be among the last to fight against something like this.

And so I'll reiterate my question: What incentives do these corporations have for opposing such legislation?

I'd say zero. In fact, I'd argue that their business models incentivize them to support such legislation.

Laws as such favor big tech more than others, despite their proponent often selling them as "anti big tech." Big tech has more resource to comply with the said regulations than, say, some teenager with a Minecraft server in his basement. Big tech can also absorb the downsides of identity verification — if your choice is between giving out your ID or losing access to your entire gmail account forever, I imagine 95% of the people will just cave. So big tech does not lose much from complying either.

If big tech just withdraw from any market that tries to stop them, the logical conclusion is for these markets to seek alternative products. This gives the alternatives the investment and network effect they need to become more capable competitors of existing big tech products.