> other great methods of communication. Really though? From my perspective, it seems as though an option can either be a great academic solution or it can be w

> other great methods of communication. Really though? From my perspective, it seems as though an option can either be a great academic solution or it can be widely adopted. I've used Signal service discovery to decloak a whole mess of colleagues. I'm talking about people who have firstname@aol.com email addresses. Good luck finding another messenger with penetration that deep and a material dedication to user privacy or security. Alternatives exist, like Telegram I guess, but I perceive the list of viable alternatives to be very short. That's not to say we should accept Signal because it's inevitable, just that network size should be a strong consideration when considering how to advocate for changes or decide between potential alternatives. Example: Signal requires a phone number as an identifier. Do we spend resources lobbying Signal to accelerate deprecation of phone numbers or advocating that people use other software? In my view, the size of the user base makes lobbying Signal worth the effort.