It seems useless to me, at least regarding the cybersecurity aspect. Of course, it’s helpful when people ask for my contact information, and I don’t want to share my phone number or email address.
But they still require information that could be used to prove or be linked to my identity for registration, right? This means a hacker could still reveal your IP address, phone number, email, and your passcode. Likewise, the development team can access these as well.
I know I’m overly cautious about my privacy, but that’s just how I am.
I remember when Signal used to be a drop-in replacement for SMS. It used phone numbers so you could automatically upgrade to secure messaging if your recipient also had Signal, and just use regular SMS otherwise.
Signal’s automatic fallback to SMS was the best. Now they killed that and even have the audacity to ask for donations. Boo!