Large companies sometimes claim to do this "to fight spam" because it's an excuse to collect phone numbers, but that's because most humans only have one or two and it serves as a tracking ID, not because spammers don't have access to a million. Be suspicious of anyone who demands this.
Obviously this has many downsides, especially from a privacy perspective, but it quickly allows you to stop all but the most sophisticated bots from registering.
Personally I just stick my sites behind Cloudflare until they’re big enough to warrant more effort. It prevents most bots without too much burden on users. Also relatively simple to move away from.
Google apparently decided my wife's gmail account was unused. The mail part was other than some forwarding rules (she lives on WeChat, not email.) She's been consistently logged in with YouTube and Translate, though--and now the only way I can get Translate to work is by logging her out.