app expiration is a security issue and is bad for users.

Apple’s App Store doesn’t allow users to update free apps if they have a negative balance. This plus Signal’s user-contemptuous app expiration misfeature locks people out of secure messaging and sends them to other platforms. I received this message on TikTok.

It actually makes me angry that Signal would implement this functionality. What user, if asked, would respond “yes” to the question “Do you want this app to lock you out if the version gets a bit out of date?”

It’s actively contemptuous toward a user’s wish for a functional device. A janky out of date app is always better than sending a user to a platform that is active surveillance instead.

Pop up a warning, make it annoying. But don’t lock people out of a device (that they own!) that worked fine yesterday. I am extremely confident that if this time bomb weren’t in this app, her app would still be working fine today and my friend and I would be having a secure conversation right now. Ugh.

The issue does not name any files, tests, or entry points. Start by locating Signal’s iOS app-expiration behavior and its existing warning or lockout flow; done would mean replacing the lockout with an annoying warning while preserving secure messaging access for users whose app cannot be updated.