Sure it will. But there isn't so much they can do about it. Google could.
Still, people asked for an option to use Signal without Play Services, and here it is. Even if it will drain their battery a lot faster. Moxie actually said this beforehand:
> I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience
> I expect it to have high battery consumption and an unreliable user experience, but would be fine with it if it comes with a warning and only runs in the absence of play services.
So for those who are still running on devices with Play Services, it will still use GCM, and hence won't be a drain on the battery?
My phone is way more battery light since getting off Google Services completely. Conversations uses a similar solution, I think, and I have way more battery at the end of the day than when my phone was stock Google Android.
Yes. But everything is tradeoffs. Some people are apparently ok with less battery life instead of Google Play Services. Its been a very big critique of Signal for I long time.
Personally, I think it is a pretty poor critique but this allows people to make that choice for themselves, which for some people is important.
I've been running WhatsApp without google play for quite some time now, and I haven't noticed any battery drain. The only downside is when Android occasionally will kill WhatsApp to save on RAM or something, and I don't get any new messages until I open the app.
Though to be fair, every android phone I've used seems to have a problem with occasionally "forgetting" to get messages until I check for some reason or another.
