I can see a lot of forums getting raped by spammers. http://forums.ipodhacks.com/ I just found that site...another that's been taken down. Here is the message in case they go back online. That's a VB site. If you find a site defeated by spam go ahead and post. I think admins are giving up and xrumer is winning. New measures need to be taken to combat spam.
Its not good exactly, but the way I look at it is this: Why would someone want to spam a site no one wants to go to? They only spam sites where they think they might be able to get people to visit their spam, and sites they can find
Sadly I imagine in the future more and more sites will require phone verification to sign up and more personal information from users. Some sites are already doing this, like Facebook will remove captcha's if you verifty your account with a phone. After all if the site has your personal information I hardly doubt you will spam there, as you will be not be anonymous.
I dont think that would be so bad to have all the phone verification. There may be even higher quality content, with less spammers. Although, phone verifs are a pain, they may have there place.