[shortcake27]

People shouldn’t be expected to give up their privacy and anonymity and put themselves at greater risk of identity theft because big tech can’t be bothered figuring out a different way to solve spam.

Just because the rest of the world doesn’t mind giving out their phone number, it doesn’t mean it’s harmless. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get sim swapped and have all of my bank accounts drained because some random company with zero security measures demands I provide my phone number to use their app.

[viraptor]

I think you're misplacing your annoyance here. A lot of the world is not constantly affected by Sim swapping. Your phone number is not a secret either. The problem is the minimal verification that allows sim swapping to exist in the first place.

[derefr]

These companies don't expect you to give up privacy and anonymity. They expect you to pay $1 to rent a phone number. To these companies, a phone number is an externalized reusable proof-of-stake in the PSTN NFT market — nothing more, nothing less.

[FormerBandmate]

Unless you have beef with a state sponsored actor, you’re safe with Signal. Possibly even then

If you have beef with a state sponsored actor I’m not really sure what you’re doing on HN. The Taliban uses WhatsApp lmao