signal requires a phone number to sign up. a phone number could be used to trace your signal account back to you. so why do people, especially privacy enthusiasts and experts (like edward snowden), still use it and endorse it when it lacks anonymity in that sense? i get that people could use a voip number or something to sign up, but still.
My biggest pet peeve is that I don’t want to give out my phone number to a lot of people. And these days, social media handles have taken the place of phone numbers when making casual acquaintances, even when you talk to people in real life.
That’s pretty much it. Signal’s privacy protections are unmatched.
All the other reasons to move away from providing a phone number have downsides that are rather difficult to mitigate, IMO.