What a phone number is really for
A number is asked for because it is scarce: an e-mail address costs nothing to create and a number costs money and effort. It is used to stop bulk accounts, and it is also the strongest identifier most services hold, because it is tied to a real contract in a way an address is not.
Nobody at the service intends to call you. The number does a different job, and knowing the job explains why it is requested on a product that clearly has no need to phone anybody.
On this page
Scarcity is the point
Anybody can create 500 e-mail addresses in an afternoon. Obtaining 500 phone numbers costs money and leaves a trail. A service that wants to limit how many accounts one person can hold reaches for the scarcest identifier available, and for most of the world that is a number.
It is a stronger identifier than an address
A number is issued under a contract with a name attached, it usually stays with a person for years, and it is used as a key by many other services. That combination makes it far more useful for linking records than an e-mail address, and the usefulness does not disappear because the stated purpose was verification.
Verification and retention are separate decisions
A service can verify a number and then discard it, or verify it and keep it. Both satisfy the stated purpose, and the 2 differ enormously in consequence. The policy text is where this is settled, and a page that says a number is used for verification has not said which of the 2 it does.
What it costs you
Giving a number links this account to every other place the number is known, and it puts the number into a database that can leak. This is a real cost paid for a service to reduce a problem you did not create. Where a service works without one, that cost is simply not incurred.
Questions before you start
Do virtual numbers work?
Many services block known ranges, because a blockable number defeats the scarcity that made numbers useful. Where they work, they weaken the link rather than removing it.
Is a number needed for security?
It can be part of it, and an app-based code does the same job without giving anybody a number. Offering only the number version is a choice about identification as much as about security.
Can I remove it later?
Sometimes from the account settings, and rarely from the records behind them. Removing it from the profile and removing it from the logs are different operations.
Open a chat that asks for no number and no address.
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