[chrispeel]

Everyone can get an app on their phone or computer that supports TOTP, such as Google Authenticator

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-based_one-time_password

[supertrope]

The problem is customer support load. Also what does the company do about those without a smartphone? No smartphone no service? This is why businesses peg account authentication to phone numbers. It offloads IAM overhead to phone companies.

[pdntspa]

Who cares. Spend the money on customer service people then. Companies don't need all the profits they make and investors dont need their 10000x returns when 9900x will do just fine.

[gruez]

What happens when they smash their phone and now you have to do account recovery? With SMS authentication you can presumably offload that to the carrier.