I made a clean break (never installed WhatsApp in the first place, in fact). I got many friends to install Signal and use it to contact me, but only since other people have started using it as their preferred messaging app as well is it reaching critical mass - friends who are not on Signal are now starting to use it due to FOMO.

So what I'm trying to say is: I've seen your strategy working, so it's a good one that doesn't require you to make too many personal sacrifices.

I tried Signal and it was hopelessly broken unfortunately. No matter what I did I could not get it to consistently send push notifications when I received a message which is practically the second most important feature of a chat app.

How long ago? My group of friends switched to Signal a few weeks back and there have been no issues with push notifications for me on iOS. It might be worth another look if it's been a while.

Only a couple of months ago (second time I tried, both times same issue). This was on Android btw. To be clear I meant the push notification on my own device didn't work (reading back I can see what I said could be misinterpreted). I suspect it had something to do with aggressive background process management but even switching everything to low power efficiency settings/ always on didn't work consistently. I've moved on.