Comment by caeril
2 years ago
I'd pay much more than $2 if they offered account identifiers other than phone numbers. Trying to get a burner SIM or DID while still staying anonymous is getting increasingly difficult.
But I think it's pretty clear by now that this is a feature for FVEY IC, not a bug. FFS, they burned development resources on stickers, but abjectly refuse to offer alternative account identifiers. The standard apologist response is, "but phone numbers make adoption easier". Sure, but nobody is asking to replace the identifiers, or even to make them nondefault. We're just asking for the option. It could be hidden behind a developer mode for all I care, but it should be there.
The fact that they abjectly refuse to do it is enough to tell you about what their true motivations likely are.
Agreed, at this point I don't believe the "privacy" aspect of Signal's sales sheet means anything. Most that I know use it primarily because they can have clients on all platforms, including desktop.
> We're just asking for the option
Indeed, the Wire messenger is done like this - it offers phone number, but has an option to not use them and only rely on the usernames (although I think you need to register in the web browser for that)