Agreed, or a burner alternate email. If Google didn’t give any option other than phone number maybe we could make a case of ill intent.

I think the main driver here isn’t that they want your phone (although they’re happy to have it, I’m sure), but they don’t want the tech support headache of manually verifying and unlocking accounts for tons of people.

Can you describe some alternatives to a recovery phone or email? Honest question.

Most folks probably would. Privacy is often at odds with convenience.