[krick]

Every time someone brings up Signal in these threads I cringe. One can make up stories about spam protection as much as he wants, but given how little (basically none) control one has over him phone number, no messenger strictly requiring a phone number can be considered "privacy-oriented" by any sane person.

[maxwell]

What do you advocate for an alternative identifier and how do you combat spam without verifying a phone number?

[pier25]

no IDs, only connect to the users you choose to connect with

SimpleX comes to mind

https://simplex.chat/

[Cody-99]

Huh?

I think you are confusing "privacy-oriented" and anonymous! Signal is pretty privacy oriented since it has E2EE by default (and so does Whatsapp). Telegram would be much more privacy oriented if it had E2EE by default.

[fragmede]

they have usernames now

[zuhsetaqi]

You still can’t create an account without a phone number