[alisonatwork]

I tried to join Discord during the pandemic when I lived in China and they forced phone number verification both on and off VPN (presumably because both VPNs and China IPs are considered untrustworthy, which annoyingly defeats the point of using VPN). Then I went to Canada and bought a local prepaid SIM, but the area code was not recognized as a valid phone number so I still couldn't sign up.

It's very frustrating as a user to be region-locked on the supposedly open internet, but the real feeling of violation happens when companies layer phone number requirements on top of the region lock, which in many countries means that your government ID is now linked to the account, because you cannot buy a SIM without linking it to your ID. Truly a cyberpunk dystopia.