From an outsider/non-user's perspective, there are two angles to this: dropping the ability to use Signal as your default SMS handler does make the program much more secure, but it also means the barrier for getting new, casual users to onboard much harder. When it functions as an SMS app, you can get friends/family/whoever to install it and set it as default, and it will opportunistically use E2EE when available.
It seems to me like this improves OPSEC for very privacy focused Signal users, but increases the barrier to entry for "casual" users who may not care enough to use a separate app for certain people, but may be convinced to use Signal for SMS.
All that said, I'm not sure how any of that actually plays out in the real world, or if there were that many actual users doing just that.
It seems to me like this improves OPSEC for very privacy focused Signal users, but increases the barrier to entry for "casual" users who may not care enough to use a separate app for certain people, but may be convinced to use Signal for SMS.
All that said, I'm not sure how any of that actually plays out in the real world, or if there were that many actual users doing just that.