Call me what you want but it is my belief that the reason google is locking down and Apple refuses to budge is that in the near term future our mobile devices will become our identity online and in public.

Apple already offers digital ID in some states. They can do this partly because they can guarantee to the gov’t the ID is genuine because the user cannot modify the system.

Google needs to be able to do the same thing.

Age verification laws for online services will actually require something like a digital ID and Apple and Google want to be the providers.