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Kaj_Sotala comments on You can't signal to rubes - Less Wrong
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But going by the evolutionary origin of behaviors makes the whole concept of signaling uselessly broad, which is the exact opposite of what Patrick was trying to do in this article. E.g. this article suggests that all of these behaviors could have their evolutionary origins in signaling:
I think some of those behaviours are still (i.e., cognitively) signalling (according to the OP's definition) for a large part of the people who engage in them. (How many people actually terminally value dressing up in expensive fashionable clothing? Hint: Do they also do that at home?)
I agree that the concept is uselessly broad, and probably could be ditched altogether without too much information lost. All of the behaviours in that quote could reasonably fit Patrick's criteria, which I guess goes to show that they're pretty weak. I appreciate the effort come up with such criteria, though.
If we add to the criteria that signaling should be of evolutionary origin, shouldn't it just constrain the concept even more?
I agree that the concept is broad and the phenomenon pervasive, and these siggest to me that the concept needs breaking down: we need words for costly-signalling, spam-signalling, practical-signalling and so on.