When the UK age verification legislation was being debated I recall people saying "don't worry about unintended consequences, it's not like you'll be have to show your ID to random websites! Someone will show up with a reasonable methodology. You'll be able to e.g. show your ID at a shop and get an anonymous token.".
And plenty of people, including myself, thought "this is so dystopian it couldn't possibly happen".
It did happen, and it's as bad as the doomsayers said it would be.
I would be curious what it's like in the UK. It would probably do well as an HN submission if you're up for writing a blog post about it. All I know is that they passed some legislation that requires people to authenticate for anything that could possibly show nudity or something, including Wikipedia, and that VPN apps were going wild. I don't know what it's actually like in daily life, how one does authenticate to Wikipedia (or if they bought themselves time for now by iirc suing the govt?), if there are privacy-friendly age verification options and if those options are commonly implemented by the websites that need it, etc.
Personally I haven't noticed anything with Wikipedia, or Reddit (only ever used when searching for opinions through Google with "Reddit" on the search query).
If you want to watch porn or view anything NSFW with websites that complied, I suppose you just start up NordVPN and select Chicago or something like that. Brits who watch porn are probably just watching more American themed porn now.
Otherwise, (some of) these websites are supposed to show you a digital verification screen with third party gateways. Usually using an ID card. I'd guess most people just installed VPNs.
And plenty of people, including myself, thought "this is so dystopian it couldn't possibly happen".
It did happen, and it's as bad as the doomsayers said it would be.