g has been demanding a valid phone for years, as have most other major providers. if you lose the number you sign up with, you can potentially get locked out of the account. whats your mo?
Not one of these emails ever had a phone number attached. The current gmail accounts I use also have no phone number associated, whenever I'm asked to attach a phone number for recovery or security I decline.
As none of these were ever signed up from a phone number there's no phone number to lose, in the event of a security challenge I verify from an associated gmail account.
There's little to no trace of my birth certificate name, phone number, actual address of my house, etc. on the internet .. the few people who do push through on that kind of back tracking invariably end up with a relative or a different but similar West Australian.
Initializing a new (or power-washed) android/ChromeOS device _requires_ a Google account, so if you don't have one (or claim not to) they device initialization process will generate a new Google account for you. Even if there's no phone number or SIM card in the device.
I've had a number of Android/ChromeOS devices over the years, and I've had each one generate a new Google account. None of these accounts have phone numbers associated with them.
I generally don't use these accounts for much more than downloading free apps from the Google Play store -- maybe more extensive use would trigger a "You must add a phone number to this account to proceed"?
This actually makes it possible to transfer your phone number between SIM cards or even operators, and means your cell phone is blissfully unaware of its own phone number.
It's been a while since I've had to look at Android in any detail, but I remember that not being necessary, and a quick search online suggests that to still be the case today.
If there's a non-obvious workaround, why not post a link to it?
"Just Google it" isn't as easy as it used to be...