Everything about Signal will make more sense if you forget every opinion you've had or read on a message board, and accept that the project's mission is simply to transition as many people off insecure systems as they can. For example: message board nerds are apoplectic about Signal's phone number requirement, but the systems ordinary people were already overwhelmingly used phone numbers already. As communications trend towards ephemeral video messages (I have trouble understanding why, too, but then I'm old), that's where they're going to head.
The cool stuff about Signal is what happens under the hood. They don't want a special identity as a "private messenger"; they believe all messaging should be secure.
The cool stuff about Signal is what happens under the hood. They don't want a special identity as a "private messenger"; they believe all messaging should be secure.