The people communicating with each other need a way to ensure that they are communicating with who they think they are; and for most people, they are trying to hide what they are discussing, not necessarily who they are discussing it with.
When I first got into open source I downloaded every app I saw that could make me feel like a spy, but I quickly deleted 90% of them because I had no use cases for them. I did find an app I believe based off the signal protocol which had no names or numbers and the only way to initiate contact between two people was by scanning each others qr code, but good luck ever meeting somebody to download the app.
It’s been hard enough convincing anybody over signal. Americans are pretty locked into SMS and everybody else seems unwilling to leave WhatsApp.
Really hoping google loses here.