I fail to see how mass scale reproduction of copyrighted code isn't a form of distribution.

There is code I gift to the world that I license as MIT or similar and there is code I publish as a means for furthering what I perceive as a advanced society which I license as GPL or similar.

I don't ask anyone to share my ideals but conflating these two is dishonest.

The shifts between flags will correlate with date of birth though, or do you think someone turning 16 or 18 will wait a year or two to switch to more adult content for privacy? Also I'd guess the tech industry would push for more specific age buckets.

Games already have PG ratings and similar in different countries, I don't see the issue there. Web content could set a age appropriateness header and let browsers deal with it, either for specific content or for the whole website if it relies on e.g. addictive mechanics.

Applications is a wide field, but I'd be interested in specific examples where you think it wouldn't work.

You can do it by using a feed reader and subscribing to the channels rss feeds. Keeps you better isolated from dark patterns as well.

edit: has the added benefit that there are different feeds for All/Videos/Shorts/Live/Specific Playlists, so this is another way to avoid shorts

I honestly think the answer is tax money. It should be clear by now, that a browser is (critical) infrastructure and it should be funded as such. Ideally by multiple, non-aligned states.