just to get it out of the way: yes, i know i can use a spam email/phone number. yes, i know i can opt out of promotional emails/texts. that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. i don’t need a growing list of empty accounts for websites i only spend an hour (or less) browsing through. don’t even get me started on restaurants that ask for your phone number when you scan their QR code…
The reason why is because google lets you sign in from their account, so they don’t have to make a new account, just hit the share on the google thing.
No filling out forms then verifying email, which would severely lessen the number of people that would sign up.
When youtube tells me to verify my age, I ex out of youtube. Pretty convenient their protection of children yields them official receipt of commercially valuable information that they can make more money off of.