[irscott]

What is stopping someone from running signal on a dedicated burner if they're worried about it?

Different people have different threat models and I think asking for a phone number for the reasons posted above is acceptable for most people.

[csydas]

There really is no such thing as a dedicated burner. you don't even need NSA level threat vectors for most phone sim purchases in western countries to exfiltrate tons of user data.

Wifi is even worse, not better..

[hiq]

I think the best way to get a burner account is to use the free services to receive text messages online. These are enough to create an account, and you can then set a pin to prevent any takeover, assuming you synchronize your account every week.