There are services online dedicated to temporary account activation phone numbers to bypass Google's requirements, but most of them can only receive messages. Requiring the user to send an SMS seems like an excellent method to get rid of those services so that bots can no longer use them.
I don't really see the point of a privacy-preserving workflow when it comes to a Google account. It's not like they need to know your phone number to track you.
They might adapt and support sending sms (hopefully) in addition to receiving them. I guess all other services which send sms verification code will switch to ask the user to send the sms, like google.
>>don't really see the point of a privacy-preserving workflow when it comes to a Google account. It's not like they need to know your phone number to track you.
More information is always better.