I read through the links, and there were about 15 posts where people got locked out of their Google account over a 12-year period. Many of these are links to articles on other sites not written by the submitter, but we'll count them anyway. So that's ~1 per year.

According to dang, there are ~100k monthly active logged-in HN users [1]. In a population that size of 25-54 year-old Americans, you'd expect around 290 to die each year [2].

Getting locked out of my Google account is pretty low on my list of things to worry about.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9219581 (and that was in 2015 - I assume it's grown since then)

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm

If you look through those they are almost all about people forgetting their password or losing whatever they are using for 2FA: that is exactly what I'm worried about!

In my particular case, I am happy with my 2FA setup for Google (three security keys, across multiple locations) so I think that category of lockout is pretty unlikely.

And I've already lost my keys once in my life, about 20 years ago.

How do you think that compares to "lost my keys" or "lost my wallet"?