I could stop trying to use Discord and drive to Best Buy and buy a cell phone and pay for a month of service. Then I could add the number to the account. Then if I stop paying for the monthly service, there’s a good chance that Discord or whoever won’t believe I’m me at some future login and will demand I give them a code they sent to the phone number on file.
That’s a lot of effort/cost that the user of a website/server has to do, just to access that website/service, when email validation already works (not as well, but still works).
The onus of the effort/difficulty of dealing with bots/etc. has been shifted from the website/server owner, to the user base.
yamanii@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I just searched for it and got into some shady free service that didn’t even need an account, the only caveat is that you are sharing that temporary phone number with several people, and it will probably stop existing in some days, just enough to create an account.
brianorca@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Which means when they ask to verify your number again in 6 months, or after a computer upgrade, you are SOL without that specific phone number.