It highlights that their elected officials are messing with something they like. It is also a lot safer for the business to block a geographic area than deal with PII.

If they operate in those states they need to obtain proof of age. I don’t exactly know how that works, since I haven’t had to do it, but I imagine it is something like uploading a driver’s license picture. If you have all that personal information you have to protect it, or risk information disclosure and lawsuits. A porn favorites list and personal identity info together in the same system is just asking to be hacked.