That's not really true, you can make a throwaway Gmail account in about 5 minutes. Make one per Android device, throw the login details into a password manager and forget about it. I've done this for several Android devices now and never run into any issues.
Ironically when I tried to set up a legitimate Gmail account for my business and used it to set up several accounts, within few days it got locked with no recourse for unlocking - there was a comment box where I could beg for an unlocking, never even got a response though. So Gmail is only for throwaway accounts from now on.
When two postal-code locations (e.g., day and night, home and work) are sufficient to specifically identify 90% of the population, and with Android devices being infested with location-tracking capabilities (above and beyond GPS), creating a pseudonymous account != hiding your identity from Google (or whomever else it shares data with, intentionally/willingly or otherwise).
Yes, if you control for your source IP address. For example, I couldn't find anything from a quick search on whether Tor exit nodes are blocked (or use requires other PII to be supplied).
All you get asked today (at least in Australia on a residential ISP) is a first name, last name, password, date of birth and gender (includes "prefer not to say").
Years ago I think you were correct, a phone number and SMS verification check was mandated, and each phone number could only be used so many times on different accounts.
No, I'm still required to provide a phone number. This has something to do with my browser/system/ip fingerprint, because a friend of mine can make a google account for me from his googled phone on chrome just fine, yet when I try to log into it from my degoogled phone on firefox from my place, it asks for a phone number.
It's about as awful as discord, who also locks account creation behind providing a phone number when an account is created from my residential IP. It almost feels like I've tripped some prevention mechanisms that all these companies are sharing and I have no idea of how to get my "goodness" score back up.
Ironically when I tried to set up a legitimate Gmail account for my business and used it to set up several accounts, within few days it got locked with no recourse for unlocking - there was a comment box where I could beg for an unlocking, never even got a response though. So Gmail is only for throwaway accounts from now on.