He presented the issue with gitlab very well. Setting up an entire new account is the major reason (besides time) I don't contribute to projects on other gitlab instances. For some reason Gitlab management didn't think it important at all (maybe even considered it a feature).
Yeah, been using GitLab semi-professionally for a while and have accounts on multiple instances, it never asked me to have a credit card on file, and I just don't put in a phone number. Saying that it requires it is sensationalism.
I guess Canada also doesn't need credit cards. But as you can see from this comment, there are countries in which credit cards are required: https://lemmy.one/comment/3041845
Their documentation has been frustratingly outdated at times too. But since GitHub is MS owned there are better options. I prefer codeberg for having an actual account on.