this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2025
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If you need to send sms to someone not on signal, why not just send them an sms
if they need my phone number to have an account anyway, they can offer both.
i dont need more apps that do the same thing. i need less.
It's arguably a very bad idea for a secure messenger to also provide an SMS interface, since those are basically cleartext
exactly. so I'm wondering what the purpose is for its need.
(edit: apologies- the phone number. needing the phone number.)
What? You use a secure messenger to send secure messages. It doesn't make sense for a secure messenger to offer sending insecure messages (SMS).
Edit: oh, you're probably referring to why it requires a phone number. This seems to be due to abuse/spam prevention, as otherwise creating new accounts to spam people with is basically free.
using the phone number is still a pretty unnecessary risk, imho.
there's no real need for it any longer.
Do you have a better approach to prevent spam in mind? Without a barrier of entry it becomes a serious issue.
Spam prevention? Ive got spam on Signal. Having your phone number be the barrier of entry doesn't make Signal a flawless app.
and considering i can just plug a google voice number in, I'm not sure its the best barrier.
Spam isn't a binary issue, where it either exists or doesn't. It could very well be the case that, without requiring a phone number, there'd be far more spam (since it'd be far easier to automatically create new accounts).
Again, do you have a better suggestion for spam & abuse prevention?
And still, aside from that - it doesn't really make sense to expect Signal to offer SMS integration just because it requires a phone number for spam prevention, when offering this integration would be detrimental towards the mission of Signal (offering secure messages).
it does make sense, actually. as they had that function when the app was first around. why do you think they have you sign up with a phone number in the first place?
also, it's not on me to solve every technical hurdle you make up. if you want to learn more about Spam Prevention methods, I can point you to some resources if you're truly interested.
I'm sorry that not everyone thinks Signal is a god app worthy of worship. its a message app, and its not the only one. it does stuff some people don't like. including me.
Again, spam & abuse prevention. We've been over this.
I'm not saying that Signal is a god app worthy of worship, I'm saying it's detrimental for them to include SMS functionality, since that's fundamentally insecure. That's literally why they removed it. Is that so hard to understand?
nope I fully understand it. completely. and when they removed it, they removed my need for their app. as suddenly I went from being able to message everyone, to being able to message just 2 people.
it no longer fits my needs. so it isn't used by me or by both of the people that were leftover after the sms turn off. as they had the same reaction I did.
so that's that, I suppose.