Nothing new here. E2E is only available in one on one chats and is disabled by default.

At least Telegram has an open-source client. Very few messaging platforms can say that, and fewer have a decent UX.

It’s not perfect, but it’s got the best combination of features and multi-platform availability by quite a bit. None of the other messaging apps support all of my devices except Matrix, and Matrix doesn’t have stickers

Signal

Yeah, the glaring problem of having to share your phone number is gone too:
…signal.org/…/6712070553754-Phone-Number-Privacy-…

They still tie it to your ID since you need the phone number.

And we just trust them not to share your social map to NSA which they totally don't do. Trust me bro