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Or one could just change the phone system so if you press "5" during a call, the caller gets charged 25 cents (going either to you, the phone company, or charity, it matters little). Phone spam would stop instantly.

It would require some technical changes, but nothing impossible.

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Then phone spam would be replaced by fraud, similar to what already happens with premium number fraud: https://www.twilio.com/learn/voice-and-video/toll-fraud

A bot tricks a voice service to call them, then rakes in fees.

To be vulnerable to the 25 cent charge, you have to make a phone call. Why is anyone setting up a bot to make huge number of phone calls? The phone system is meant for people to make phone calls to other people.

For types of 2FA, sadly. AWS also does it to verify your phone number when you create an account.

So the worry is that some fraudster would set up numerous AWS accounts with a number for 2FA which AWS would call, and then they'd ding them for the 25 cent charge?

If actually a problem, having the charge go to charity rather than the recipient would eliminate any monetary incentive. I suppose one is left with someone who has a grudge against AWS trying to bankrupt them 25 cents at a time...

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