I hadn’t put my sim card in the new phone when I set it up, WiFi only at that point. I’ve only set up a new phone with a new acct this one time, which was a month or two ago, and I just remember being kinda surprised it didn’t require a phone number. I guess it uses chrome browser to provide the setup interface.

At some point I’m going to reset my old android phone, that will be my next opportunity to try and create another account.