Are we talking about asking or requiring? I agree no one should require a phone number, but it's completely reasonable to ask if people want to use that rather than email.
This is the key point isn't it? For so many services whose core demographic is not HN readers, vast numbers of the customers will prefer to use a telephone over anything else. Even I will occasionally prefer to call if there's an issue with a large company that needs sorting immediately, or I'm finding emails getting constantly ignored.
Certainly requiring a telephone number (or any other personal details that I'd rather not share) is ridiculous, and it's the company's responsibility to contact me at my convenience, but there'd be a far bigger complaint over services no longer even asking for a number.
Agreed, but at some point asking starts to feel like badgering.
Basically every time I log on to Zipcar.com to make a reservation they throw up an interstitial asking for my phone number. It gets old. If I declined the first 5 times, what will make the next 50 times any different?
