Presently, I have no copyright strikes nor community guideline strikes (I.e. I get three times "your account is in good standing" at
http://www.youtube.com/account_manage ).
I also have zero content-id matches (i.e.
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_copyright gives "No videos were found").
Upon learning of this new policy of SMS validation, I saw that YouTube did
not provide me with the SMS validation option. I never encountered the "Increase your limit" option. But I accessed it anyway with a direct URL (
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload_verify ), and got the SMS sent to me. I entered the code, and got redirected to
http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_upload?id_verification_completed=1 . I have hence SMS-validated my account.
But, still I get "Increased limit not available for this account" on that same page, or the default upload page,
http://upload.youtube.com/my_videos_upload .