You are quite right. I have never owned a smart phone myself and never carry any type of phone with me. When I change countries, I try to use shitty pre-paid du

You are quite right. I have never owned a smart phone myself and never carry any type of phone with me. When I change countries, I try to use shitty pre-paid dumb phones. I was completely unaware that online services seem to hate this, and will lock you out forever if you change your phone number (or change countries - something that has gotten worse, I have noticed, as I have been crossing borders and logging into things for 20 years). It used to be easy. Now it's a nightmare. I find it disturbing to imagine that people are stuck with phone numbers as de facto ID.