(Also, it's kinda funny that Signal has reimplemented the iMessage problem -- you have to unregister your phone number on your website so people can SMS you again rather than continuously sending you Signal messages unintentionally.)
(There are also other problems that have bubbled up in Signal in the past year since I stopped using it -- I've heard there's an auto-backup process that takes more than an hour and makes your phone unusable and you cannot change when it happens.)
More importantly, I'm still very interested in seeing the data behind your vocal-minority assertion.
Comparing those two userbases doesn't make much sense to me.
I think it's really you who is making the extraordinary claim here and you should be providing the evidence. Signal's goal, as has been repeated many times in these threads is to replace SMS and other less-secure forms of messaging for as many users as possible, not to cater to somewhat off-the-beaten-path concerns over phone numbers. They are aiming for users of messaging. And they are making the very reasonable inference that most of those users are not hung up on identifying themselves with a phone number.
Additionally, if Signal's current users cared about the phone number thing that much, they wouldn't be using Signal to begin with. Where's your survey data that says Signal users just can't stand the phone-number-as-id thing?
What I was trying to convey is that I would expect people who don't understand or care enough about their personal privacy would use more popular and mainstream messengers. Whether people who care about privacy consider phone numbers private or not is something we need data to determine.
> Where's your survey data that says Signal users just can't stand the phone-number-as-id thing?
That's exactly what I'm asking for. At this point, we're both speculating. None of us can make solid claims about either userbase without providing evidence. tptacek most certainly can't claim " a small but vocal minority of Signal's user base wants non-phone-number identification" without providing evidence either, which is the original objection that started this thread.
Don't expect people to take your reason for dismissing their concerns seriously when you base it on your personal perception or beliefs in stead of facts, and don't make unsubstantiated claims to discredit their concerns.
Have you done a survey before arriving to this conclusion. If so, I'd love to take a look at it, if possible. Otherwise, I can't see how you can make this assertion; everything can be dismissed as a "small but vocal minority".
As a previous signal user, I stopped using signal because I discovered this issue.