This is my old account that I just logged in today. Just joined a server and Discord asked for email verification. Okay, that's not hard, thankfully Discord doesn't restrict email to only big providers. But then suddenly DIscord asked to verify by phone number, because "something is out of ordinary". What's out of ordinary from that??? Joining a server > Discord asks to verify > I verify.
I was losing my mind seeing people suggesting moving to Discord when Rexxit happened. Like WTF, it's even worse than Reddit. Non-indexable content, worse privacy, needing account just to access the said content, etc.
I really hate how services nowadays require your phone number just to use their service. Unfortunately most people just don't care of privacy, thanks to "I have nothing to hide" mindset.
They should really just use captchas instead
There are captchas actually, which I'd filled 3 times. First one when I just logged in, second one when I was forced to change my username, and last one when I joined a server.
Captchas are even easier to get around, and when a spammer buys a bunch of VOIP numbers there's a pattern that can be blocked/banned whereas if they pay some workers a few bucks to solve a few thousand captchas there's not exactly anything as identifiable there.