Invidious link: https://invidious.tiekoetter.com/watch?v=TzGEmXync5M

An overview of Signal’s long list of flaws (phone number id, Play service payments, centralized infrastructure, etc) and the history of The Signal Foundation of ignoring many of these issues.

Signal is disappointing. And I am tired of pretending that it’s not. I have been using and recommending Signal for longer than it existed. Signal just came out with a feature we have been waiting for for 8 years.

You see 8 years ago, the only flaw Signal had was that it required a phone number to register and find contacts. This was bad, because it meant you couldn’t get an anonymous Signal account, which meant you could get hacked or abused by anyone who knew your phone number. It was also easy for authoritarians to censor people’s access to Signal by denying phone registrations by country code.

The reason for the phone number requirement was to prevent spam. The primary function, was to use your phonebook to quickly onboard new users and send notifications whenever anyone in your contact list signed up on Signal. A very convenient Silicon Valley feature that allowed people to quickly connect with their friends and also let domestic abusers find out their victims are trying to contact a lawyer’s office over Signal.