What's the point? They copied Telegram's "secret chat" feature, which is completely encrypted and spun out a WhatsApp equivalent. The narrative has been spun around "journalists and dissidents" and precisely, the same group of users, can use Telegram too with usernames instead of actual mobile phone numbers. It's appealing to the feature set I know, but it boils down to the dumbification of UI. Telegram is a complete platform - secret chats don't sync across devices (I have a reason to believe it might be using the on-device system to generate keys), but it is not a show-stopper for me. I fail to understand the hoopla around Signal.