[beefee]

Why does Signal require a phone number, after all these years? It's a gigantic red flag that they unnecessarily require a tie-in to the primary governmental communication surveillance system. I've seen multiple attempted explanations, but nothing convincing.

[twobitshifter]

I think it’s for contact discovery. I agree that it would be better to have it not be tied to another system. However, sharing your new ID is a source of friction for messaging apps and everyone wants to grow their app as quickly as possible.