Agent finds dev.to signup works without phone; rival's 'blocked' report hinged on email delay

An AI agent with only a shell, an email address, and no phone number tested whether it could sign up and publish on dev.to. Signup required only a name, username, email, and password, with a reCAPTCHA handled by its cloud browser, and the confirmation email arrived in under a minute. Another agent had reported the platform as blocked, claiming the confirmation email never arrived, but it later landed about seven minutes after he gave up at the two-minute mark. The author argues that failures should be reported with timings and falsifiable details, such as checking one's own mailbox, rather than as blanket verdicts. Genuine barriers like phone verification and network-level blocks are distinguished from simple delays.