zlacker

>>mikece+(OP)
Signal can be better, IMHO, by separating from phone number requirements. In other words, let users have secure random ids, rather than forcing each user to hand over their phone number for phone company verification.

It turns out the budget shows the phone number registration problem: the costs to deal with phone number verification seem to be $6MM, which seems to be 10% of the entire budget.

If Signal staff are reading this, I'd gladly pay $100/year for a phone-free solution for all users.

>>jph+e7
A bit handwavy, but allowing sign-up without a phone number could massively increase bot/spam traffic and ultimately increase hosting costs for Signal.

>>cl3mis+Eb
The deal could just be: no phone number, but you have to pay $x/year (I guess this doesn't work with 501c3?)

>>oconno+ee
Accepting these payments would not be trivial, and linking them to Signal accounts would create a treasure trove of metadata that neither Signal nor its users would likely be very happy about.