This is not black and white. It is possible to encourage 2FA but allow to opt out. The same for phone numbers.

And that's why companies enforce 2FA: they want your juicy phone-number or other data. And yeah, maybe they also want to reduce support costs and avoid bad publicity. Still, it's not in your interest, it's in theirs.

If they at least would allow for a sufficient number of options. Like paper-tan (even self printed), yubikey or similar, second email address, an authenticator, ... but even big companies often only require a phone number.

EDIT: Yes, Google offers more than a phone number when creating a gmail account. I didn't say they don't. However: they don't make it easy and I would even go as far as saying that they are evil here. If you don't believe me, try to create a gmail account right now and don't google/search how to do it without phone number.

The key takeaway is not about how we should promote 2FA or how we should promote long ass passwords, the main issue at hand is google's neglectful lack of customer support.

I was once caught in this non-sense many moons ago. But I learned my lesson, I absolutely do not rely on any google products for anything that has any potential to impact me personally (with the unfortunate exception of the Android OS on my phone).

Google as a brand is absolutely dead in the water for anyone that has woken up from the 'Don't be evil' kool-aid of the early days.

Sometimes you have to make hard choices where some people get burned because the alternatives are worse. That doesn’t mean you don’t care.