1. You use the username to connect to Bob.smith.123. This creates a conversation with the user who currently has that username.
2. You can’t see that user’s username, just “Bob Smith” or their name in your contacts, so them changing or deleting their username isn’t even visible to you. Your conversation is unaffected.
3. If, in the future, you add username Bob.smith.123 again, it may be a different person.
I think the name is a mistake, I’d have called it an “add code” or something. Clearer to explain a new thing than to say a word that means a dozen wrong things and always be correcting everybody.
I agreed with your suggestion. Username is a poor choice.
I’ll go ahead and repeat that I have said in previous comments:
> or their name in your contacts
This is a huge mistake on Signal’s part — even if both have saved each other’s numbers the username-to-username connection should not mix with any other “normal conversation” ever!!
They should also not try to show the ser “name” either - some other name or a named conversation.
Let’s say I create a username and then later delete it as they suggest.
Can someone else then create the username and continue the conversation?
Is there a means to know if I’m talking to the same “Bob.smith.123” I was a few weeks back?