BTW, one more thing where Google thinks I'm stupid:

Increasingly, it tries to tie your phone number to your accounts. Fair enough, problems with fake accounts and all that, I don't like it but I understand it.

However, the prompt is invariably "Let us verify it's you. Please enter your phone number:" or something along those lines. With that, you don't verify that it's me. You just verify that someone has a phone number. It's for your protection, not for my protection. Don't patronise me.