borisburke: Total security is impossible.
Did I say otherwise?
borisburke: You can choose to go heavy on the protection systems, or you can choose to minimise your exposure. I prefer the latter.
2FA is a cheap and effective system to raise the hurdle of account theft considerably. If you don't want to have your bicycle stolen, you use a good lock, no? Not too heavy, but not too cheap either. Because - while it can be broken within minutes - it still makes thieves pick easier targets. I also find 2FA not too "heavy" (inconvenient).
borisburke: Your phone number is the entry point for all the data anyone could ever need about you. Why would I want to hand it over to anyone I don't trust?
That's between you and your phone. I doubt anyone could do much with my phone number, other than spamming me on Signal or Telegram.
borisburke: Sensible practices are much better than any anti-virus program. I never use an installed AV. I've had one virus in twenty years, and that was because of a daft mistake I made.
Where did I talk about AV?
And while I agree that the best protection against viruses is Brain 1.0, especially Windows had so many vulnerabilities over the years that required no user interactions - remember Conficker? Drive-by-downloads? Some of that malware was spread through ads from perfectly legitimate websites, like news sites etc.
Also malware that is out for your data, spying on you, is something that you don't notice - it doesn't show popups, it doesn't encrypt your files, it just sits there watching you and logging your actions.
While I do agree that the usual AV provides a false sense of security to the average user, and is often a vulnerable target itself, it does make sense to regularly scan the system for malware and rootkits.
As you wrote yourself - shit happens. And many people aren't as computer-savvy as you and I and most people on the forum here. And damage is quickly done. Because of that I see 2FA as another line of defence - which can be broken, for sure, but it slows attackers at least down, and maybe even makes them look for easier targets.