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I don't like giving out my phone number HOWEVER most services ask for your phone number at signup as a bad way to combat spam accounts.
It used to be to make a new account you just needed a email and password. Well the average person could easily make many new email addresses or use any "one minute email" services on the web to make hundreds of accounts.
Now most places ask for a phone number since the average person only has one number, their cell number. That way the average person can't spam out hundreds of accounts. Sure there are free texting services online but it's easy enough for services to only allow one unique phone number for any account. Or use Google voice to get a phone number but you will hit a limit.
So, not a great way to combat people making spam account since you have to give your phone number away.
This is the issue with the internet not being anonymous anymore.
Spam accounts don't matter if it's just one person posting across multiple accounts. They still have the same posting power, whether they post it all on one account, or post it on a million accounts.
The only problem is bots. And there are better ways to identify and stop actual bots than limiting account generation by phone number.
The thing with phone numbers isn't to stop spam, it's to force people to use only one individual account. There are many reasons a website may want to do this, some more nefarious than others, but it sucks.
I like Reddit in the old days, when you were almost expected to have a billion accounts to post from. It allowed people to freely express themselves and created actual discussion.
That stupid lizard Zuccc ruined the internet
The minute that asshole convinced everyone to use their real details online was when the culture of being called “silversheet123” and refusing to give over any personal information because “never trust anyone online” ended.
Lifelog Psyop worked bigly.