See, that identifier might be an option. Or .. it might not be necessary. If that identifier would be the core 'me' on Signal, why wouldn't you be able to add me by phone number - if I gave Signal one to share/associate with? Mum and Grandma would see no change. People like me could run around without a phone number.

It's not as if that hasn't been done. twitter.com/darklajid is me (not worth checking it out). See? A name, tied to an identity. Same here. I used to have a FB account and even _there_ you can have a profile name that is unique and shareable. I really think you conflate things here: I DO NOT want to make life harder for mum/granny/the average WhatsApp fan. If you love that random people show up in your roster because you store their number (or vice versa: You show up on your Ex's roster because she didn't delete you yet) that's fine. And could continue to work like that.

I really have a hard time understanding why it isn't impossible to opt out. If I have a key, registered with Signal - why would I need a number on top? _Especially_ given that there's no federation to speak of, so I assume they don't need to 'shard' base on the identifier. [email protected] -> talk to example.com? That's not happening here. And I don't see why/how they'd shard on numbers? +49 -> route to a German server?

Why is a phone number (and all the things that come with it: Discoverability for example) a requirement? You didn't answer that.

Yes, Signal might not be for me. I'm reasonably sure that I mentioned that before in this thread ;-)