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Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Counterpoint: I’ve had the same number for 20 years. In all that time, I’ve had maybe 5 instances where I needed to get a confirmation number and couldn’t get enough reception.

It works well enough, the vast majority of the time, for the vast majority of people. You’re an extreme edge case.

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Counter counter points:

1. I’ve also had a single phone number for over 20 years and quite frankly stopped counting the number of times I’ve been locked out of my accounts due to bad reception.

2. SMS is an insecure communication channel.

Over 1.4 billion people travelled internationally in 2018. You’re making an assumption based on a single data point, just as you imply the author to be.

Do you use PayPal? It’s impossible to even login while you are abroad.

I agree with you, it's absurd how much companies rely on the premise that you are still hooked into a national phone network. Because even if you're using a temporary or permanent international SIM card, typically these "convenient" 2FA systems will not text international phone numbers. Conversely, it's typically too expensive on a long-term basis to use a phone plan from one country while traveling / working / living abroad in another country. Now, after countless struggles with it, whenever I see a random request for getting my phone number for 2FA, I instantly reject it. No, I do not want your incompatible extra security system that will lock me out randomly, thank you. For U.S. engineers who basically don't travel abroad for extended periods of time, it may seem weird or unlikely that these problems exist, but I have several friends who would also testify they do - and 2FA with phones doesn't work for us.

> Do you use PayPal? It’s impossible to even login while you are abroad.

Are you sure? I'm in Eastern Europe right now and just logged in and sent money.

I was about to say, I've had no problems with PayPal after I moved to Serbia. Venmo on the other hand...

I travel a lot (about 100 days in another country in the last year). I live in the UK. I am not implying my anecdote is data - just adding another anecdote to the pile.

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