Signal for me

from one centralized US-based server to the next, what could go wrong?

Is country what decides the services you use? That’s pretty shallow

yes, perhaps you would be the wary one if Signal were run in China or Russia??? Besides the point here is that is impossible to be resilient and have control over your server with Signal, with Delta Chat you can self-host, or use a local provider in your country, companies can have their own independent server etc. also not needing phone numbers is a big plus

You can self host Signal.
https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server

tell me how many people are doing it??? do you realize after setting up your server you also need to create a custom app that uses your server and publish that to all stores???

besides self-hosting Signal is much more expensive than self-hosting Delta Chat, MUCH MORE, and in the end you can not federate with other instances so it is a pain in the back, you would need an app for every instance and group of people you interact with, plain nonsense, not to talk about all the effort and costs of setting up the SMS verification process, as Signal themselves said "Signal is free but it costs money" a lot of money, they pay millions per year just to keep the thing running

The point is that, if Signal goes bad/evil, someone can just take the code and self host it.
I don’t need a federated service. I want a messenger that has powerful end to end encryption with forward secrecy, post-compromise recovery, deniability, and post quantum encryption.
Other social media, like Mastodon and Lemmy, don’t have encryption because everything is public anyway, and I value decentralization more about them to avoid political interference and censorship (which are irrelevant on Signal).

Yes. Talking to myself is sooooo satisfying...

"The point is that, if Signal goes bad/evil, someone can just take the code and self host it"

it seems you totally ignored what I just said, there is no point on keeping repeating the same thing if you don't want to see it, have a nice day

the point is that you onboard with family and perhaps some friends, not to do it alone

The point is... (almost) nobody is going to do that. Ask a layman what a SMTP is.