But, it sounds to me like more reason to want to self-host.

So do that. You can do that with Signal.

I don’t see any point to rehashing the other stuff. Non-TLS websites mostly went away once DNS spoofing at wifi hotspots became widespread.

Maybe I wasn’t clear, someone said that back in the day registration on a website was a new and bad thing, connecting it with privacy and comparing to Signal asking for phone number. I answered with the idea that not much commonly thought from that time about privacy has aged well. You wouldn’t register on websites, but you would communicate with them over plaintext. I hope that makes it clearer.

1. When people would complain about JS on webpages, they were not.
2. Completely different things overlap all the time.
3. Because your status updates and messages are encrypted and stored (until retrieved, of course) once for every recipient, and that includes your other devices and their other devices.

Do not let this derail us.

Nothing is derailing you personally. Why are you repeating this to others?

0. Yes, and in that time you would visit a website with your own IP address likely, likely over HTTP without SSL/TLS, likely with your vulnerable browser fingerprint. Point?

1. Privacy, not anonymity. Two completely different things.

2. Because the way Signal is built hosting it requires a lot of resources (storage especially), so they want spam prevention and fewer accounts per person.