Comment by traceroute66
8 hours ago
> registering without phone number as a paid option soon
Replacing the need to register with a phone number with a requirement to pay is a better option how, exactly ?
8 hours ago
> registering without phone number as a paid option soon
Replacing the need to register with a phone number with a requirement to pay is a better option how, exactly ?
Decreases what info Signal needs to collect and retain about a user. When using an SMS verification as a proof, Signal needs to log the phone number, because if they didn't, one spammer could use one phone number to create 10^99 accounts.
When using payment as proof, they can verify that payment occurred, validate the account and then immediately forget about the transaction. One spammer would still have to pay 10^99 times to create that many accounts.
Payment leaves a huge identification trail because of all the know your customer stuff these days.
If they accept monero or something then ok but I doubt they will.
Also when they start dealing with payments there might be regulatory requirements like record keeping for a certain period.
They could make it so all that is known by banks is that you purchased the service. Like how Nym does it or how you can buy Mullvad credits on Amazon.
https://nym.com/zk-nyms
Ideally they accept Monero and do unlinkable payments but I doubt they will accept Monero. Hopefully they accept some crypto.
If your concern is "muh phone number", then you can pay and not have to give the phone number to sign up.
It's already the case today (and has been for years) that you don't need to give strangers your phone number to chat on Signal. My username is soatok.45; try to get my phone number if you can.
If you want absolutely no info to be collected, ever, and there to be zero cost on the end user too, be prepared to welcome your new spam overlords. Because the people who will benefit the most from a zero cost signup that only requires a username are spammers.