and the thing is: Telegram having a proprietary server feels more opensource and open to 3rd party clients and developers (ex. bots, mini-apps etc) than Signal, Signal’s issue tracker has a bot auto-closing stale issues and several people are completely ignored, never receive a reply

I highly recommend you to give a try to https://arcanechat.me/ (I am the developer) it is heavily inspired by Telegram, if you want to test it you can join this community group: https://i.delta.chat/#6CBFF8FFD505C0FDEA20A66674F2916EA8FBEE99=&a=invitebot%40nine.testrun.org&g=ArcaneChat+Community&x=3KvvQZfzU4t-9u5s0PF3USGp&i=AQKH9_8x0R0&s=dbGW9xOhRQX

1. if they leaked something you wouldn’t know because US government law doesn’t allow them to disclose if they requested data.
2. uses AWS servers that also the gov could ask for access to Amazon directly without even talking to Signal, being centralized and depending on AWS infra is also a weakness.
3. needing phone numbers to register, often tied to passport and it is super easy to get your whole network when compromising 1 device
4. all centralized services start nice, attracting users, once they have you, and money starts being a problem… meet: enshitification

Or the classic “guys I am leaving WhatsApp, moved my whole family to Signal, another centralized US-based silo that requires phone numbers and runs on AWS, CloudFlare, etc.”