This is a good point - but at some point we have to trust someone. I feel that the Signal folks are worth trusting. Plus it's open source, so the more technie among us can meaningfully audit what's going on. That's not foolproof, but it does seem better than most alternatives.

Certainly it's better for the gov't to pay Signal than to try to do it themselves.

> I feel that the Signal folks are worth trusting.

The MobileCoin integration and the long standing refusal to support a way to use the messenger without using a phone number (or a smartphone at all) make me wary. To me they sit pretty much on the same level of trust as Meta's WhatsApp, which is a sad thing to have to conclude.

This. Session does desktop and mobile cheerfully without leaving metadata enabling government real-time location tracking.

And cheerfuly does bunch of other things https://soatok.blog/2025/01/14/dont-use-session-signal-fork/