this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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Well, what about this: Early exposure to the shithead practices of modern gaming can enable children to more easily identify what's good and what's just trying to take money from them.
I dunno.
yeah the problem is this doesn't line up with the horror stories I've personally witnessed. Sudden, massive credit card charges. The problem can occur when kids aren't spending their own money, they're using their parents', some way some how.
Regardless, kids are already surrounded by ads in every corner of life trying to convince them they need XYZ in exchange for money. I'd rather work to make the kid's environment less consumerist, to give them a vision of how life could be.
If you give your kid access to your credit card you're a fool. Those are parents who perhaps needed to learn some extra lessons in life.
The second the kid goes to school, they're faced with every single fad anyway. It's insanity. Everyone wants a croc, a Stanley, a labubu. My kids see the ads built in to the YouTubes, and they see it from friends, and I do my best to explain to them what's happening.
And if they earn some money, or get birthday money, and they want to burn it on some nonsense, I explain to them what's happening but ultimately give them some autonomy. And when the next thing comes along and they can't spend money because they have none, they either learn or they don't.
You could argue the other way around - growing up with decent and non-predatory practices makes you less tolerant of when companies try to extort you because you already know what "good" looks like.
I'm sure the corpos would love nothing more than kids getting exposed to predatory practices from a young age so they grow up feeling those things are acceptable and normal.
Drag thinks we should expose kids to a safe environment most of the time, and to little bits of predatory design in contexts that make them easy to identify. Like a vaccine.
"Dad, how do I put armour on my horse?"
"You need to grow up and get a job and a credit card for that."
"That sucks, I hate Oblivion! I want to go back to Morrowind!"
"It's okay buddy, I pirated the Oblivion remaster. Let's play that instead."
Most kids aren't discerning about those kinds of things.
That's why I slam that shit home all the time. Robux are a scam. YouTubers are just selling to you. If it has ads it's not worth watching. Just repeat that every day to the kids and they're good to go.
The message they will take away is "the things my parents approve of" and "the things that are really cool and fun" are disjoint categories. IDK, I'm not a parent, I don't want to deal with that. Just thinking about my own childhood here, and the kids of people I know.
The problem is that kids dont make or have money. Its like burning their hand the first time, they need to attempt to pay for their own lives fully at least once to really understand it. I think its fair to restrict these types of things to mature rated games as a general rule.
My kids didn't see an ad connected to videos until the youngest was about 7 (outside of a movie theater, at least). When they first saw them, they were flabbergasted about what they were or why people would just sit there watching them, and absolutely refuse to put up with them. I'd say they are better off seeing how things could be, so when they see how things are now they recognize how utter shit it is.
This is amazing. Good job! I wish more people were like this. Apparently São Paulo in Brazil has no ads at all.