Comment by tptacek
2 years ago
My general experience in discussing this over the last 10 years is that nerds like us generally find it absolutely mindbending when privacy services make decisions in the interests of ordinary people, such as using the phone-number-based addressing ordinary people already use in order to minimize serverside metadata. But I think it mostly just speaks to how carefully people aren't thinking about the project's goals, and the fixation they have on their own goals. A lot of people are just super angry they can't write their own TUI for Signal.
That argument might have had something to stand on if:
1. Users were properly informed
2. Users were given the option to opt-out
And please don't pretend being annoyed about not being able to write third party client is in the same realm, that is just disingenuous.
I'm pretty comfortable with how sturdy my argument is, but that doesn't mean I think you have to agree with it.
I'm interested to know how you believe basic honesty (1) or choice (2) would violate Signals goals, or impact them negatively.
And I'm not talking about something obnoxious like a cookie-banner here, something in the fine-print would go a long way.