Also good points, and just really says the reasons why we're even talking about it. It was awfully convenient to not even have to create an account and just use the phone number. Which means it was always going to lead this way...
I wish Freedom Box was still a thing. But what we need, is an easy to use personal cloud. You could say, use a sample of your contacts to confirm it's you (phone call, in person, etc. it's up to whatever you all setup), But even then, that's also highly exploitable. Security is hard and by definition isn't "easy", as water flowing in a wide river. But that river demonstrates it's own strength, with ease.
Perhaps we just need something solidly outlined we can all agree upon and coders could step up? If we as a community don't have a focused goal how can we expect "any" company to play straight?
What I see is a need for a framework to give you a set of limited but in combination powerful options. Choices on how and where to store. Level one security you probably have to maintain yourself and know what you're doing. Level 5 might be what signal is going for now. But that has its own issues of course, like fragmenting. But that's regardless, what we need for for anything to work is mass adoption. And if the populace can drop to level 2 or 3 with a simple slider then, well. If I communicate as a level 2 with a level 3 or 4 I get an optional banner displayed, but always a small icon that color changes to signify less security.
