Matrix/Element sure manages to do a lot of features that Signal doesn't. I'll admit the UX is not perfect, but it's not really that bad either; it even has a couple of UX advantages over Telegram, especially if you want to use the E2EE private chats in Telegram.
Signal could undoubtedly offer more features. Lacking granular permissions in group chats, for example, is not something I read as being "by-design". The phone number one is by-design, but I do not really agree it is a good security choice.
It's easy to offer features when you're allowing yourself to keep track of everyone who's talking to everyone else in a serverside database.
Re:Secure messengers in war time
by kitkat_new on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @10:22AM
(#30528349)
Conceptually, there is nothing that prevents you to put the server on the phone, and employ store & forward nodes.
See what people are working on regarding Matrix: https://matrix.org/blog/2020/06/02/introducing-p-2-p-matrix
This really twists people up in knots, but it's not hard to understand, even if it frustrates you that you get a poorer user experience in the messenger that has the cryptography you want (or poor-to-nonexistent cryptography in the messenger with the user experience you want).