There is a significant difference between developing and promoting a protocol (such as XMPP) and a product (such as Signal). Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. This post details how and why Snikket aims to strike a balance between the two.
Ironically, Signal is about to move user IDs towards something unattached to telephone numbers and it had not been able to do so yet. Meanwhile, the slow moving XMPP has never made the wrong decision of using phone numbers because it was developed in an era when phones where a whole other thing than today's pocket computers. Instead, XMPP accounts are federated like Lemmy or email…
There's a beta you can try using a test branch app on their staging servers, you'll need to make a new account with your number again and there has been issues where its leaked your number
Ironically, Signal is about to move user IDs towards something unattached to telephone numbers and it had not been able to do so yet. Meanwhile, the slow moving XMPP has never made the wrong decision of using phone numbers because it was developed in an era when phones where a whole other thing than today's pocket computers. Instead, XMPP accounts are federated like Lemmy or email…
Have you heard something recent? I feel Signal has been saying that for years now.
There's a beta you can try using a test branch app on their staging servers, you'll need to make a new account with your number again and there has been issues where its leaked your number