To clarify, the issue with the age verification is that it involves uploading ID (Drivers License, Credit Card, ETC), which is sensitive, identifying information.
And given how the Government is heavily leaning towards a porn ban altogether, it’d be very easy for them to criminalize, track down, and charge people just for possession of porn, much less creating it.
Not to mention stuff like how PayPal and Mastercard have been deliberately targeting porn creators by shutting down their ability to gain revenue; this isn’t a case of artists being “skittish and stupid”, this is a deliberate targeted effort on behalf of the US Government to criminalize porn and scrub it off of the internet.