a) there are laws involved
b) you have a variety of content/products specifically aimed at different ages
I won't speak to gender, that's certainly a different concept, but age doesn't exact ring alarm bells for me here.
Anything more granular is marketing and advertising BS which they have no need for.
They could probably figure out watch preferences with good statistics, (and do), but asking for age probably gets them in the right ball park a lot faster.
I don't want to watch children's tv shows. They have never suggested children's shows to me.
My children don't want to watch bloody horror movies. They have never suggested bloody horror movies to them.
Sometimes I have to search for what I want. That's fine. Sometimes I don't, that's even nicer.
Tying things from what you watch to what you might want to watch will be miles more effective than your age, because your age has nothing to do with what shows you watch.
I've known parents to show their kids "The Passion of Christ" or "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." I also know parents who watch (and love) shows like Phineas and Ferb or Spongebob.
What? I apologize, but that is absurd. Entire industries are built around the idea that people of different ages _generally_ have different tastes.
Take the "children's" television network Nickelodeon - someone realized that kids like different shows than adults, so they made an entire, 24/7 tv network dedicated to it.
Then they realized that kids go to bed at an earlier hour, so they made "Nick at Nite" for adults where they showed reruns of old tv shows. Then they realized that really young kids like different shows than older ones, so they made Nick Jr. Then they realized that ~college age people liked different shows, so they made Adult Swim. Then they realized that some older adults wanted to watch classic cartoons so they made Boomerang.
These weren't one-off "oh, one person likes different shows". These were entire age-based demographics. And this is but one example, plenty of industries - especially entertainment industries - target exactly this.
And plenty of hard science is based on the fact that human brains "mature" and adapt over time. Young kids brains are different that geriatric brains,
That is not to say any of this perfect. As these algorithms collect what a person does and doesn't like or watch, they can and should change.
And if someone wants to show their kids "age innappropriate" material to their kids, that's there choice. But don't recommend "The Human Centipede" to a three year old when they turn on the tv, and don't recommend Cocomelon to me.
Things you are not entitled to know about your customers: anything else whatsoever.
Asking for people's age, gender, or whatever, is creepy and rude. Especially if you inconvenience the customer in the process.
And...
(a) You can comply with COPPA and similar laws by not collecting data on ANYBODY, which is what you should be doing anyhow. No sympathy.
(b) Let the customer decide what the customer wants, thank you very much.
The UK is pretty insistent that they will require almost every site on the internet to be suitable for under 13s or credit card age verify.
Anything you are legally allowed to.
For any questions or concerns please contact your senator.
Also Disney: “Tell us your gender so we can target ads based on that!”
I would take DIE advocates more seriously if they reformed themselves — rather than lecturing the rest of us while engaging in such blatant hypocrisy.
Calling "cultural marxism" on [checks notes] a *marketing ask* is like calling a restaurant a food bank because they both involve food.
Hah. Ok fine let's call it by the more academic term. It's still a thing and nothing was refuted by your comment.
To Lego's credit, they did seem to make a point of putting both girls and boys on their advertisements.
Marketing is what killed it. Boys followed “He-Man” and girls “She-Ra”.
Come to think of it, those are the most heavily gendered characters in existence. Look at their freaking names!
Marketing was responding to toy stores gendering the aisles; can't get on the shelf if the store doesn't know where to put your product.
I'm not sure what stores were responding to. Possibly the public.
Growing up I watched both He-man and She-Ra, in fact I thought She-Ra was the better show since it had a somewhat darker tone than He-Man did, but I didn't know any boys who owned She-Ra toys.
Jem and the Holograms was supposed to sell fashion dolls sold in the pink aisle (competing with Barbie), but the show itself was specifically written with lots of action to keep boys interested so they wouldn't change the channel and prevent their sisters from watching.
“Comply with age-related legal obligations
“Personalize your content and experiences
“Deliver targeted advertising to you”
Not everyone is ok with being profiled from every possible angle.