Regulatory capture through a higher barrier to entry. Any social media platform that wants to compete with Meta's portfolio will now also need to have an age-verification system in place (which is guaranteed to introduce higher costs). Meta can likely afford to eat the costs here as a tradeoff for the higher impact on smaller players.
It also gives them more information on users as a bonus. Further, verification with a real ID is also a quite effective barrier against excessive bots.
I would think the barrier to entry gets lower because Apple/Alphabet handle age verification, and they let apps/websites use that verification.
Look beyond the CA law, states have already passed laws that put the liability on app and website developers to ensure users aren't kids, there's no passing the buck to Apple or Google.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/congresss-crusade-age-...