It is technically illegal, because the app is uploading all data from the phone book of a smartphone (names, phone numbers, email addresses, birthday dates, post addresses, etc.), but Meta argued that the data isn't saved directly, all get an unique identifier, which is necessary so the app can work. But collecting data from people (who don't even use WhatsApp) and didn't agree to it, is illegal in the EU and only replacing a unique number with another unique number doesn't make a person anonymous. It's still an identifier.
That's why I wrote technically, because WhatsApp is still around and Meta might have found a loophole, otherwise a lot of countries couldn't use WhatsApp and I think Meta had to invest a lot of money to create or find this loophole.
Imagine you would travel back to the 1990s and tell someone that in the 2020s people will pay about 200k for a link to a jpeg, but everyone can download the jpeg. They will not even understand why the future is so messed up, but they will ask if we have flying cars, yet?
for the shopping list I have a similar hot key and after saving the list, it will be automatically send to my android (over local network, not over the internet, sharing it with dozens of companies) and I can open it with SimpleTask having it sorted by the shelves how they appear in the supermarket to not run like a psychopath back and forth.
Only if you've already lost the control of your life a long time ago.... then it really doesn't matter and you might not care about anything but wine about having no money.
omg... why would you work for a company like this? Working with shitty technology all day could lead to depression.