Given the difficulty people talk about recovering an account to which they've lost the password or recovery methods, it seems like Google ought to periodically ask you to verify that your recovery e-mail and phone number and 2FA device are still correct. It seems like that would basically solve the problem in most cases.

So I kind of find it strange that I use Google services extensively, and yet I can't recall ever receiving a reminder of that kind. But maybe other people are?

Since Google seems to anecdotally make it impossible to recover an account if you don't have access to your old phone number or another logged-in device, it seems like it should be a bit more proactive in ensuring things like a phone number are kept up-to-date?

Obviously that won't help when people don't touch an account for years, but it would help in cases like this story, where people actively use an account on a device for years but without ever having to regularly put in a password.