Could you all just stop trying to flee corporate greed jumping from one company to another? We already have XMPP, Matrix and other descentralized solutions.

Oddly enough, once you make that three fiddy payment signal will now potentially have a payment method linked to your account.

If this is true that payment method can essentially be tied to a identity.

I suppose the reason they are choosing to do this is to prevent a influx of bot accounts and spammers/scammers.

All the purist here would rather use matrix to send messages to themselves...

Signal is an amazing alternative to WhatsApp and one of the few apps you can actually get non-techies to install. If it's not for you then don't use but don't say stupid shit like "why would anyone use it? it's not perfect!".

Hmm, I bet there’s a hidden 50 cent surcharge. Damn it, Loch Ness Moster, I ain’t giving’ you no tree fiddy!

I have this in Threema. Thank you

it gets worse

The feature currently requires Google Play Services, as payments run through the Play Store, making it such that devices without Play Services cannot access it

From the official announcement

Can I buy an account on a device that has no Play Services?

Not yet. We have plans to add more payment methods, but currently only offer Play Store in-app payments, which requires Play Services.

Ok so given how long it took them to allow an alternative to phone numbers, it will probably be at least 5 years before you can pay using a de-googled phone. I really don't understand what's so hard for them to accept crypto, they already do for donations. Smells like government involvement.

You mean they want to identify you from your credit card instead of your phone number? Bah.

Yeah why am I donating $10 a month every month for them to come up with shit like this. Google? Really? Now I question what else is going on behind the scenes.

Signals reliance on phone numbers is my biggest problem with it. I don’t understand why they can’t move away from them entirely.

I didn't expect to get cancer from a website called itsfoss.com, but I guess it's time to put an adblocker on my tablet, too.

Deltachat and Jabber, both decentralized encrypted messaging apps (as opposed to Signal, which is centralized), don't even require an email to create an account, let alone a phone number or payment.

Why does a service that no longer does SMS want your phone number?