Google locked me out of my account for not giving them my phone number. Even though I used the correct password. Even though I verified myself through the recovery email, which has been the same for ages. Even though I wasn’t using a VPN or connecting from a public network. Even though there was no reason to think my account or credentials were compromised.
They are, in fact, extorting phone numbers from people.
Thankfully, I don’t depend on my google account for anything, but I’m still stuck receiving spam forwarded by gmail, because I can’t log in to turn off forwarding. (I’ll probably have to filter it out at some point.) I honestly hope they just delete my account after some months without a phone number.