[nurumaik]

You can buy "anonymous number" on fragment without using any client and without providing any personal information and use it as much as you can

When signal becomes at least remotely as popular as telegram it will implement same protection to fight against spammers because you can't have free unrestricted registrations and don't drown in spam

Telegram currently makes it as accessible as possible: either use it freely but register using phone number and official app or pay and use anonymously as you want

[aniviacat]

I just looked at the fragment.com site to see how much such a number costs. The lowest possible bid you can currently make, and that is for an auction that has six days to go, so probably not even the final price, is over 100$. That is an unacceptable price for basic privacy.

[tapoxi]

Signal is already extremely popular, their anti-spam by default is that you need to get matched to the user's local contact list or the spam becomes an allow/deny prompt. They also require a confirmed phone number and handle registration throttling.