If the descentralization of social networks continue, we will have to prepare for the eventual rise of the instances wars, where people will start to fight about which instance is better and which one is weird to be in and so on, but that’s for the future of us all.
I’m not sure about all of them, but for Google, you can’t create a new account without a valid phone number for SMS verification. If you created your account a long time ago then you’re kind of grandfathered in and don’t need to add a phone. They don’t allow known VOIP numbers (including Google Voice) and I think you cannot use the same number for lots of accounts.
This might vary by country. My experience is with the US version of gmail.
Hm I have made at least 3 gmail addresses and didn’t have to do this. And in fact their apps support account switching pretty easily, which seems to indicate that they don’t really disapprove of making multiple accounts.
In fact the only thing they asked for was a backup email address in case you get locked out or they need to send security alerts, and that was optional.
Interesting. I had to make a new account just a couple weeks ago (for Android testing as part of my job) and there was no option to continue without SMS verification. Couldn’t use a landline, couldn’t use VOIP, couldn’t fall back to email verification or anything else.
One of my coworkers was unable to use their cell phone number because Google said it was already in use. But it let me use the same number I have associated with my personal account, so go figure.
Interesting, could be because it’s something you’ve had to do often enough that they’re trying to rate limit you