Just to add to the frustrating elements of this shockingly bad decision:
In my friend circle, at least, it's common for people to go in and out of using Signal. They might have had it on an old phone and forget to install it on the new phone. Whatever - life happens.
Signal can't know if someone who used to have their number registered with Signal has stopped using it. Signal will still display them as a user and accept messages. It's been invaluable for me to be able, if I message a friend after a break in communication, to send a signal message...and then, if I don't get a response, a SMS message. If they respond to the SMS I can see in our history that they had signal and switched at some point. This change takes that away and will make it must more difficult to deal with inconsistent adopters.
In my friend circle, at least, it's common for people to go in and out of using Signal. They might have had it on an old phone and forget to install it on the new phone. Whatever - life happens.
Signal can't know if someone who used to have their number registered with Signal has stopped using it. Signal will still display them as a user and accept messages. It's been invaluable for me to be able, if I message a friend after a break in communication, to send a signal message...and then, if I don't get a response, a SMS message. If they respond to the SMS I can see in our history that they had signal and switched at some point. This change takes that away and will make it must more difficult to deal with inconsistent adopters.