More and more of my internet accounts require 2FA nowadays, and most of them don't allow me to turn it off. It's mainly needed because of the people who don't use proper passwords, share them everywhere, and have a system filled with malware. Those same websites nowadays run a timer to kick you out after a few minutes of inactivity, which makes it even more annoying. To me, 2FA is just a hassle.
If comparing myself with you, I will say that I am new to bitcoin, crypto, security and safety. The platforms that I have used 2FA are the exchanges that I am using, second was when I was testing Electrum 2FA wallet. I can disable the 2FA on my exchange accounts, but there would be restriction not to withdraw for certain period of time. On Electrum which is not centralized, we can easily bypass the 2FA by importing the 2FA seed phrase into Electrum wallet and bypass the TrustedCoin 2FA setup. I have seen 2FA more useful than not.
That being said: as long as it's optional, I'm not against it. But would it really help if someone gains physical access to
my mobile phone? I don't want to lose the convenience of being logged in when I use it.
You are using your laptop for the platforms, like this forum. The 2FA is on your phone. That will makes it difficult for your account to be hacked. Although, you are use to ways of protecting your Bitcointalk account and 2FA not needed, but some people are just not like you as they are careless. It would have happened before they know how to protect their Bitcointalk account. But assuming you leave this forum for good, you have 2FA enabled and you stake your Bitcointalk address, you can still have access to your account if you prove that you are the owner of the bitcoin address through message signing, if at all you do not have your 2FA again. The forum admin will be able to disable the 2FA for you, and you can reset it yourself if you like.
Google Authenticator just told me I can now backup my 2FA codes in the cloud. Lol.
What is more bad about it is that it is not end-to-end encrypted. Despite that authenticators with online backup is bad. Another is that anyone that have access to you email has access to your 2FA.
Security risk notice: Google Authenticator's cloud sync featureTo Electrum 2FA wallet users and other bitcoin 2FA wallet users