Hacker News Reader

Comment by lynx23 | Hacker News Reader

As a long-time OpenAI user, I almost registered for Claude yesterday. Got the email, clicked the link... And saw the mandatory phone number field. And turned around and closed the window.

View on HN

But openai also asks for a phone number?

you are missing a more superior product (as far as coding related)

If you're trying to say that you think Cluade does a better job coding, I've heard that already. And that was why I almost registered. But shady is shady is shady, so no, thanks. I can wait.

no worries, scammers and hackers already got your phone number, address, and SSN from t-mobile, Verizon, and at&t customer data breaches, and from one of the customer data mining vendors like LexisNexis.

Ahh, the "no need to be careful, the world is fucked anyways" argument. Whenever someone comes at me with this one, I seriously doubt their sincerity.

yes, you are missing on a better product without even gaining any privacy benefit, if you consider phone number as sensitive.

you could registered with synthetic phone number (google phone) without compromising privacy, if you were that serious about privacy

Anthropic could also NOT prompt for a phone number if they were so serious about getting their product established. But its much better to shame potential customers by claiming their privacy incentives are just wrong...

Phone numbers are public data in my country. You can search my name and get my phone number instantly (as well as my SSN). What is your opinion on that?

Interesting, I've never heard of this before. Which country is this?

Not trying to be provocative, but what’s shady about asking for a phone number?

I’m pretty sure the phone number requirement is there to make it harder for people to create multiple accounts in order to take advantage of their free tier. It’s harder to obtain multiple phone numbers than it is to obtain multiple email addresses.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com