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Far more trustworthy than google or apple. I've never seen reports of Vodafone or whatever blocking a number because of some nebulous reason (unlike say through

• lxgr 3y ago
  Eh, depends. I wouldn’t trust Vodafone to give me the time of day, personally [1]. In any case, neither Big Tech nor Big Telco are my favorite candidates to be the guardian of my digital identity. [1] Had them for years in an apartment where they have a local monopoly; speeds of 0.3 Mbit and latencies of 15 seconds – yes, 15000 milliseconds – during the pandemic were not unusual. The upgrade of the local node is scheduled for late 2024.
  • ta1243 3y ago
    Did they block you as a customer? Did they then block a SIM transfer request to another phone provider? In my country there are significant consumer protections around mobile phones.
    • lxgr 3y ago
      > In my country there are significant consumer protections around mobile phones. That's a good point – we urgently need those same protections for e.g. things like email addresses or Google accounts. But, yes, I do know people that are unable to port out their phone number: Sometimes it's a line on a contract in somebody else's name (minors, spouses etc.), sometimes it's a prepaid card not properly registered (although that's getting less common with the EU mandate to verify everybody's identity before activation). Neither a phone number nor a Gmail address/Google/Facebook/... account is a good anchor of trust for digital identities.