Unfortunately in many countries even prepaid SIM cards are directly tied to government ID verification. I know this has been discussed many times, but I agree that it would be nice to be able to use Signal for secure communications without a phone number.

I find it interesting that Germany is one country which does this. A country which has strict privacy regulations and people prefer to use cash rather than cards, but they are happy to carry a device which can track their every movement and is tied to their government identification. This isn't an EU thing, there are quite a few EU countries where you can buy and activate a SIM without any ID.

Have there been any cases where the people have spoken out against such regulations, and they have been reversed?

The history of terrorists using pre-paid SIMs/phones for both coordination and remote bomb detonation has necessitated this.

Horse hockey. They'll still do the same thing, there'll just be larger networks of individuals who activate a SIM and then swap it with someone else. The terrorist excuse is no excuse at all. It's just a pragmatist's paving stone on the path to hell and tyranny.

That seems kind of silly given you can easily buy a SIM card from eBay for another country that doesn't have such requirements.