I agree to some degree, but I think the issue of age verification is beyond this point. Yes, Linux users tend to be much nerdier and reactive than the general public. But they are the ones who use linux in the first place. Whether they gatekeep linux from others is another story, but the devs should know their audience by now - and hopefully care. And what’s more - a lot of idealists (I wouldn’t call them autistic, though that may be a factor) hate systemd in the first place. They already dont use it or don’t want to use it. So the ones that do, I argue, are more mainstream. I am one of them. I don’t want to go back to sysvinit and write a script for each new service. I also know that this doesn’t end here. Today they add the field, tomorrow, some mainstream browser will depend on it existing and the frog will be boiled. Now it is not an API, but it’s added in case anybody needs it. So you didn’t even have to add it. And they didn’t add a gender field in case anybody needed it, for example. Yes, Linux community would probably start arguing about that, but not nearly as much IMO. I think this is far more mainstream issue than you give it credit, honestly.

That is not the point. If it was so logical to add, why add it now, when you know it is controversial? The devs are aware of the controversy, they have made a political decision to do it this way. At the very least, they could’ve handled it with more care - as sensitive matters should. Turning a blind eye and pretending this is business as usual is very insulting. To me at least, and I’m sure to most who care. If you do this during “the surveillance state paranoia”, you have to be aware you are contributing to more of it.