Comment by thecrash
7 hours ago
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.