My memory is really fuzzy, but I recall back when the new IM apps were all coming out and competing for the small share of people wanting to test them, either the Wire app or using the Wire service had a hard cost ($5 USD?) (no free-to-test tier, you had to pay to use). I believe history has shown a vast majority of folks will choose free (even with ads, sadly) over a hard cost for IM. Signal talked a better game and offered everything for free.

I moved all my friends to Wire about a decade ago. Pretty, but the actual user experience was awful. We moved to Telegram and since then to Signal.

I didn't actually know Wire was FOSS.

How do they handle message recovery when all your devices have been lost (and possibly when you've forgotten your password)?

That's (almost) incompatible with E2E encryption. You could do it via "social proof" or server-side secure enclaves and pins, but that's about it.

Who cares? this stuff is all ephemeral messaging. People frequently don't have and can't find them if they do, even absent any security.

Maybe in google profile backup, where all your data is stored.