Don't they all? But good news is that they have pushed code to allow for usernames (or not even that). It isn't open to the public (or beta) yet, but it looks like the feature is going to be released fairly soon.
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.
I'm curious why you value your phone number over your data.
I'm unsure if they will allow signups without phone numbers, but they don't store that information. Signal doesn't have it. [0][1] It is very possible they go around this though.
I think these are fair points. I'll mention that I predominately use the desktop client and it works well since I frequently leave my phone somewhere else. But doesn't seem like a right fit for you until usernames and multiple device signup. Both are in the works though so maybe good for you in the future but not now.
> I predominately use the desktop client and it works well since I frequently leave my phone somewhere else.
In my experience the desktop client is slow, buggy, and takes eons to start up. There's also no web version, making it awkward to use on computers other than your own.
I would be more willing to switch over to Signal if it wasn't so lacking in this regard.
Yeah, thanks but no thanks.