Contact permission is only required to associate a name with a number. All you would need to do is type in a phone number and Signal would have worked.
I agree that it would be nice to have another root artifact for using signal (screen name, email, etc). The one frustrating piece about Signal is not being able to use it across mobile devices.
However it needs to be considered Signal was originally securing texts via TextSecure. It didn't, fundamentally, come up as a Slack or Telegram competitor. So that design decision may make it feel "behind" in comparison. However, I'll again state that I don't trust the others. There's no way you could force me to use FB Messenger or Google (product here). Most complaints here are fundamentally still UI/UX, not privacy. And useable privacy was the original intent. Signal has that in spades.
I agree that it would be nice to have another root artifact for using signal (screen name, email, etc). The one frustrating piece about Signal is not being able to use it across mobile devices.
However it needs to be considered Signal was originally securing texts via TextSecure. It didn't, fundamentally, come up as a Slack or Telegram competitor. So that design decision may make it feel "behind" in comparison. However, I'll again state that I don't trust the others. There's no way you could force me to use FB Messenger or Google (product here). Most complaints here are fundamentally still UI/UX, not privacy. And useable privacy was the original intent. Signal has that in spades.