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I think the real rationale for this change is signal believes this will push user adoption.

If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth.

However, I think the Signal team is misguided, and in fact they will just lose users who don't want one more app to manage.

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I switched years ago figuring it's just like my SMS app but sometimes I'll have more secure convos with other adopters. There was no buy-in cost.

Now that it's just some random chat app with its own protocol I could not be more allergic to their brand.

Hopefully they didn't need my user type for their flywheel.

> If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth.

Conversely, the inconvenience of having multiple messaging apps could cause User A to stop using Signal. Look at what happened with Hangouts when they dropped SMS support.

Hi, I'm User A!

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