To add to this comment. You should look out for the ThinkPad T series (no p or s after the number) if you want ease of repairs and upgrade.

You still need to put in your phone number to use their increasingly limited service though. Either go full bare sms/RMS integration or go full anonymous username only. This half ass approach please no one.

I have been in these kind of conversation a lot with my friends who work in tech. Even in tech circles, people wills till fall back to ‘unsafe’ solutions due to convenient an network effect. It sucks that we don’t have a universal protocal for instant messaging that work for all platforms and is secured (f**k Apple for that). At this point I agree that it’s just easier to just move on and use a normie chat app with burner accounts (which is increasingly harder to make nowadays)

internet in other parts of the world is honestly developing at astounding speed. I got offered 1gbps synchronous fiber for $75/month in Vietnam in 2019.