[OCTADE]

I tried to sign up for Google Scholar to manage the entries for my research papers. I was using a desktop computer to sign up. I tried to verify using my USA-based SMS number.

Google rejects my SMS number and says I cannot use that number to verify the account. Ergo I cannot create a Google account. I have no other number to provide to Google, and if I did I wouldn't even bother. This has gone well beyond ridiculous. At this rate of change, automation and AI are going to ruin people.

It is probably for the best that I can't get Google since they just view us as chunks of meat with serial numbers.

What Google likely wants is for you to sign up using your phone rather than your phone number. If you sign up using the Google software on your phone, then Google can get your IMEI and device serial number data, which is what they seem to really want. The Big Tech panopticon serves as a surrogate for the military and police to track and store data of device serial numbers. They're not going to admit that, of course. They're rather implementing policies that force you into that as your only easy option.

You could try to use an old Android phone with the SIM removed then connected to wifi and sign up for a Google Account on that phone.