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
The phone number requirement is why WhatsApp won the space over in the first place. There were loads of username+password-based services before it, but none reached the market it did. Why? An incredibly wide user funnel, singing up is frictionless.

You might understand that it's a bad idea, but that makes you an outlier.

>>zamale+la
Why not support both?

Let one communicate from a computer (or phone) with a username+password account, with people who use the service with phone number account.

This without the mechanism Whatsapp uses, where you can use it in a web browser, but it's still linked to your phone.

>>Aardwo+Db
Signal has an app to use it with your computer. It's a one time linkage through a QR code. As long as you connect with the app at least once every 30 days, you never have to worry about it and, unlike WhatsApp, your phone doesn't have to be online for it to work.