I want to add this here...very recently, my family was looking for a new chatting app to use (I tried to get them to use Slack, but they found it a bit too comp

I want to add this here...very recently, my family was looking for a new chatting app to use (I tried to get them to use Slack, but they found it a bit too complicated). I really really wanted to use Signal (even with it not having a bots API), but the fact that you need a phone number to sign up is a no-go. My question is..why do you need a phone number (which imo is way more personal, than say an email?). Being security focused...would it not make sense to have as much less info on the person as possible? We have settled on kik for now. (although call support is lacking, i feel like it'll be added eventually)