You can't control a society without keeping them afraid, so roll that tape of predators, kidnappers, gangs, and drug pushers!
What? A child doing something without adult supervision? Next thing you know they'll start thinking for themselves, asking uncomfortable questions, or looking for forbidden books in the library. Better call the cops and accuse them of vandalism or something.
A lot of the restricted stuff is cargo-cult fear of symbols that could be used in SQL-injection or XSS attacks.
A properly-coded system wouldn't care, but the people who write the rules have read old OWASP documents and in there they saw these symbols were somehow involved in big scary hacks that they didn't understand. So it's easier to ban them.
It was earlier than the 90s, and came with popular 8-bit CPUs in the 80s. The Z-80 microprocessor could address 64kb (which was 65,536 bytes) on its 16-bit address bus.
Similarly, the 4104 chip was a "4kb x 1 bit" RAM chip and stored 4096 bits. You'd see this in the whole 41xx series, and beyond.
But I've always found Paul to be a good guy, who was helpful and honest and provided a great product. Teensy is a great platform, and it's too bad these other players will have a negative impact on it.
I live in the US half the year, and elsewhere for the other half. Movie rights go in and out of availability even when staying in one place, but when you cross borders, you find your access changing pretty frequently. So for movies, I have a VPN which works much of the time.
There are still plenty of good/interesting films whose rights issues prevent streaming. There is also a significant collection of films that are just not commercially successful, and which may never be digitized commercially. I go for physical media for those when possible.
With music, a fair amount of what I listen to isn't available over streaming services. I buy physical media when I can and digitize it to keep with me.
I haven't pirated in a long, long time. I remember having to hunt down The Star Wars Holiday Special for a friend back in the day. It ended up being easier to buy a home-made dvd from a shady place. I'm sure there's more out there now, and it's easier now, but search time is at a premium.