It's meant to replace people's text messaging apps with .i imal barriers to entry. People's existing SMS/MMS contacts aren't stored by user account names, but by phone number.

When I added Signal to my device, I was able to open up my existing contacts and go.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

They used to allow their client to be used to send unsecured SMS. Then they stopped. Whatever they thought they were doing, they killed the simplest path to onboarding laypeople they had. I kinda gave up on signal after that.

[–] autonomoususer 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

No ones pays for SMS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Exactly. No one pays for it because it's free

[–] autonomoususer 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Not in most places.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

My understanding from what you're writing (and from this article) is that the phone number is really the account number. That's all well and fine, but then they force you to verify that the number is yours (or at the very least, one that you have access to because you need to receive a confirmation over SMS), so you can't use something more private. And sure, it makes it a little harder to find your new contact, but I don't think it's really that big of a deal - just exchange your other "account number" via some other channel.

Besides, don't think for a second that when this identifying information inevitably falls into the wrong hands that it will benefit you in any way. "What are you hiding, citizen?" and all that bullshit.

The part of it that bothers me is the sense of entitlement that these companies exhibit. The "Give us your phone number or fuck off" sentiment is something I just refuse to accept. If Google forces us to do the same and we refuse, what makes Signal think that we'll do it for them when they're so much smaller by comparison? Especially when you're trying to claim you're more secure and private to people that much more tech savvy than average, this just comes off as not understanding your audience very well. I'm sure I'm not the only one that is holding out against using Signal because of this.

[–] chiliedogg 5 points 8 hours ago

The last thing we need is more barriers to entry. People have hundreds of SMS /MMS contacts they'vebuilt up over decades. You can't expect people to say "fuck all that" and start over from scratch.

And you also WANT verification unless you want some bot setting up an account with my phone number so they can scam people pretending to be me.

It really sounds like your issue with Signal is it's not the correct service for your use. It's like declaring a wrench bad because it's not good at driving nails.