Yeah, thanks but no thanks.
That's my point. I hate systems that require a phone number, as they usually mean that I have a substandard experience when I'm not on my phone and I can't sign my children up so that we have a general chat tool.
The only option ends up being massively over the top team style chats like Rocketchat, Mattermost, Discord, or Slack. So we end up back on Hangouts.
A bit shit for general family conversation.
[Edit] If they do allow signing up/in with a username then I'll probably be all over it. That would be awesome news.
No. Threema does not require a phone number (it uses one for the registration verification, but your account is not linked to that number).
I'd love to use signal with more people but that, and the ux around changing phones means I can't really recommend it to anyone but the most technical of my friends.
