Nobody My experience is that far more people I know are using Signal in the last two years, than in the preceding decade and a half.
Before two years ago, exactly two people in my contacts used Signal. That was unchanging for more than a decade, despite my many efforts to convince people. There are now forty-two people in my contacts who use Signal. I believe the change is due to current political circumstances and fear of increasingly autocratic governments.
If governments were attempting to cow Signal into dropping SMS support to reduce Signal usage, that tactic would seem to have failed. This supposition also seems to be belied by the increasing adoption of end-to-end encryption in myriad messaging services, not least of which RCS, a protocol governed by international bodies.
The reason Signal dropped SMS support is because people were confused about the fact that SMS messages sent via Signal were not encrypted. This gave people a false sense of security and undermined the purpose of Signal, which is to enable and expand the use of end-to-end encrypted communication.
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Here are some statistics about Signal usage:
https://electroiq.com/stats/signal-statistics/
Notably: "The number of Signal users globally increased from about 0.5 million in 2019 to 70 million in 2024, which indicates a growing influence."
It would hardly seem people are fleeing Signal.