Chat messages with some people can hold a lot of value. Nostalgia, recalling past incidents/events, missing someone, etc. Sometimes even the most trivial of messages can be looked at with fondness and longing.

I’m personally very glad that Signal finally implemented this. It’s been such a short sighted strategy to promote itself like a mass market messaging platform while not allowing people to keep, move and restore memories.

Since it’s opt-in, those who don’t want it don’t have to use it. They’re well served by the self-destructing message timers in chats.