Phone number is not as intrusive as an ID - at least to me. People are used to handing out their telephone number to whichever webshop they navigate to to buy whatever gadget they believe to need. That’s quite a step further from requiring to whip out your phone to scane your ID in order to even access reddit, youtube, tiktok, or xitter.

But I understand your cynicism. There are privacy advocates who ask their users to join a Discord group in order to talk about the latest privacy topics. We have opensource devs loudly and proudly supporting big tech - some even demand you buy big tech hardware to use their opensource software.

Hope dies last though.