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Comment by Doches | Hacker News Reader

> would be considered unacceptable...

A more honest way of saying this would be that it wouldn't have worked -- requiring a phone number during onboarding would drastically lower your conversion rates. So what's changed? Is this a generational (grumble grumble millenial grumble grumble) thing?

Also, I'd love to know what sparked your asking this question. I don't see a particular uptick in services requiring a phone number for signup, which is something I'd have definitely noticed as I don't carry a phone.

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Twitter demanding a phone number to unlock a 5 min old account after saying it was optional and then pretending I broke their rules just to get my phone number.

As for the uptick in services requiring phone numbers? All the messaging apps, all the freelance websites, facebook, google, classified ad sites/apps. And these are just examples of things I tried using.

I use/have used literally all of the things on that list, and none have required a phone number for normal use. I've had Facebook, Google, and Twitter all require phone numbers when I've naively tried to set up bots against their services, though, which is what I'm guessing you're having trouble with here.

>works for me.

You guessed wrong. If I was trying to set up bots, why would I start blabbing about it on HN? Oh right, you assumed I'm like you.

Calm down, personal insults aren't necessary. I have to admit I've had the same experience, don't know my phone number and don't carry it with me for the majority of the time and I've needed it twice so far. Once for a Twitter bot and once for a Telegram bot.

Never before have I been asked for a phone number that hasn't been optional from any other service (of which I have quite a few, LastPass counts about 2,200 of them).

(Of course, sometimes I do still take the optional road, two factor authentication is exceptionally nice).

Many services support otp authentication and don't require a phone number for 2fa anymore.

facebook, google, dropbox, evernote, github, gitlab, amazon, ...

Try using incognito mode to create an account on google, it won't let you even though it says it's optional. However if you try and create an account in a browser which has a super cookie or google account logged in (or out) attached it'll be fine without one because I believe they are tying it to your repuation.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, fuck that.

I suspected it was a tactic, too. I've simply complied, giving the number and then removing it (as I did for another account). Not an issue since these accounts were explicitly related, so I didn't care if Twitter could connect them through my number. Anyway, the “cheating” behaviour (pretending it's optional and then requiring it to unlock an account allegedly violating their rule) upset me too.

> Twitter demanding a phone number to unlock a 5 min old account after saying it was optional and then pretending I broke their rules just to get my phone number.

Microsoft/Outlook is insufferably obnoxious in that regard, the last time I saw people signing up for it. At least Gmail asks for your number up front — Microsoft pretends you fucked up and weasels it out of you.

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