I was using Signal, too. One day it phoned home, got some new instructions from its creators, refused to work any longer, and demanded that I download an upgrade. I was not excited about this, since upgrades generally break things, but after a few days of grumbling I knuckled under. Sure enough, the upgrade is broken: it insists that I have to upgrade Google Play Services, which I can&#x27;t do, because I deleted it along with the rest of the Google code I don&#x27;t want to use.<p>I can&#x27;t use Signal anymore, by Open Whispersystems&#x27; choice, which means I can&#x27;t easily communicate with a fair number of my friends anymore, and that&#x27;s apparently just the way it is. Open Whispersystems demands that I let Google have a level of access to my phone I don&#x27;t want them to have, or they won&#x27;t let me use Signal. Their proprietary Signal software is the only way to use the Signal service, so I can&#x27;t just switch to an app whose privacy characteristics might be a better fit for my needs, as no other apps exist.<p>Am I going to convince everyone I want to communicate with that they should stop using Signal and start using something else? No, I am not, because why would they do that? They&#x27;re all happily using Signal now, and I&#x27;m the odd one out, so I lose. Sure feels a lot like lock-in; I have no good choices here.