Part 2: Let's Talk Fallout - AKA 'Congratulations, You Played Yourself'
The scope is hilariously broad, the definitions are written in disappearing ink, and now platforms are scrambling to decide whether to fight, flee, or just quietly ghost Australia altogether. Let's break down who gets wrecked, why it's inevitable, and how this ends with you trying to explain to your gran why she can't open her Scrabble app without facial recognition.
🚪 Exit Stage Left: Platforms May Just Bail
If you're a global platform with a measly 0.3% of your users in Australia, why on earth would you:
Spend millions building a bespoke age-verification pipeline just for us,
Risk storing sensitive IDs in a country famous for high-profile data breaches, and
Deal with the PR blowback when some tabloid inevitably runs "APP STORES YOUR PASSPORT PHOTO"?
Answer: you wouldn't.
You'd just pull the plug, geo-block the whole country, and move on.
Picture it:
Duolingo: "Sorry, you can't learn Italian here anymore - we can't verify if you're a minor or just have bad grammar."
Depop: "We'd love to let you buy that vintage leather jacket, but unless you're willing to hand over a blood sample, no deal."
Pinterest: "Your inspirational cake boards are now classified content."
And the kicker? The government will spin the exodus as "proof the legislation is working" instead of "we just burned down our own app ecosystem."
🧨 Legal Nightmares: Reasonable Steps = Reasonably Screwed
The magic words: "reasonable steps." They're the bureaucratic equivalent of "just use common sense" - except with $49.5 million fines attached.
There are no standards, no checklists, no concrete requirements. Just a vague, "the eSafety Commissioner will advise" promise. Translation:
Comply too little → you're fined.
Comply too much → you've just spent your runway on an age gate for a knitting forum.
Comply exactly right → still fined, because "right" changes every quarter.
It's compliance roulette, except the revolver has nine chambers and they're all loaded.
Absurd-but-likely scenario: A small indie developer implements an ID check flow based on a government FAQ from March. In July, the guidelines "update" to require a second verification step. Congratulations, you're non-compliant retroactively.
💸 Death By Compliance: Small Biz Took the First Bullet
Big Tech has armies of lawyers, compliance teams, and risk managers named Janet who keep entire PowerPoints on "how to survive bad legislation."
Your average Australian founder? They've got a hotmail inbox, a dream, and maybe a Stripe account.
Here's your new MVP launch checklist in 2025:
Digital ID verification and AI-based facial age estimation
Integration with myID (if it ever stops being "in development")
Weekly data integrity reports for the regulator
A 24/7 incident response plan for ID breaches
A privacy lawyer on speed dial
A meditation app subscription for when you inevitably lose half your user base
Now multiply that cost across every startup, side project, and community forum in the country. You're looking at a founder extinction event.
Absurd-but-realistic example: A Melbourne uni student launches a side-project app for cat owners to arrange playdates. Under this law, they'd need to scan IDs for every user - for cat meetups. Their legal bill? More than the app will ever make.
🔒 Privacy? You Mean That Thing We Pretended to Care About?
The legislation's core mechanic - mandatory ID verification - is basically building the biggest, juiciest hacker target in Australian history.
We've seen Optus. We've seen Medibank. Now imagine all of that plus:
Passport scans
Driver's licenses
Facial biometrics
Date of birth, address, and any metadata tied to your ID
And because multiple third-party vendors will handle this data, your info will be floating around in dozens of databases. All it takes is one dodgy contractor and the whole country's identity set is on a dark web spreadsheet before Christmas.
Absurd-but-likely scenario: Six months in, "VerifyU" - the cheapest age-check provider - gets hacked. Every ID they've ever scanned is dumped online. The government response? "We take privacy very seriously," followed by more funding for the same system.
📉 Marketing, SEO & SEM Just Got Curb-Stomped
Removing under-18s from the digital ecosystem isn't just a moral crusade - it's a marketing nuke.
Under-18s are the unpaid hype machine of the internet:
They create memes that brands ride for free.
They like, comment, and share content at insane rates.
They tag their parents in product posts ("pls mum??").
They make niche trends go mainstream in 48 hours.
Take them out, and every organic growth channel gets throttled.
Now add mandatory ID checks for every ad interaction. Want to "like" a boosted post for your local bakery's lamingtons? Better scan your driver's licence. That's not just bad UX - that's anti-UX.
Business impact in numbers:
Expect conversion rates to drop 30–60% when age verification interrupts the sign-up flow.
CAC? It's going to spike so hard you'll think you're selling private islands.
Retargeting audiences? Gone - you can't build lookalike models without the teen engagement data that fuels them.
It's like running Instagram ads in 2012… except your call-to-action is, "Please complete these 5 forms, upload 2 government IDs, and swear a statutory declaration you're over 16 before you see the product."