[sixstringbudha]

>Am I crazy or does this seem like an extremely cynical attempt to get more phone numbers?

Yes it does. The normal Gmail interface I get now has a forgot password link which is by default activated after I enter the username. I have to explicitly jump over that to continue entering the actual password and thus to my mail box.

[tunap]

My decade+ old Hotmail account, plus two more newer ones, began prompting me for a # "for security" back around 2014. After a couple weeks of "not right now" all three of them locked me out simultaneously. Yahoo still asks for a # to this day(AFAIK... stopped using it after Oauth prompts appeared). Security IS one benefit, but it does not seem to be the most heavily weighted reason. Most don't change phone #s often, if ever. Seems like a super data tracking metric.