Worse, you can't even initiate conversations; if you've denied contacts access, the other user has to message you first.

At least for me on Android, which is wild.

The iOS app gives you an option to manually punch in a number. I'm not sure whether that's because it's to comply with app store regulations, or the product owners on both sides prioritizing different things. On both platforms you can still initiate chats without contacts access by using the wa.me domain, eg. wa.me/12125551234 for +1 (212) 555 1234.

Sometimes I need to contact somebody on Whatsapp one time or such, and I don't want to save their contact. But Whatsapp on Android shows only my own contacts to initiate chat. Like you said, wa.me is a way. I made this quick page for exactly this:

http://spa.bydav.in/num2wa.html

Alternatively on Android, the app "Click to chat" is a tiny utility that directly opens up a WhatsApp chat with any given number:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy...

The fact that this is necessary is wild.

That's not true for me on iOS. I denied it access to my contacts, and I can still start a new conversation by entering a recipient's phone number.

WhatsApp has always done this (to my knowledge). Phone numbers -> name resolution is done using your contact list. At least last time I checked.

Usernames are not given much weight in the UI--there's no guarantee that my username reflects who I really am. Feels rightly more suspicious IMO to see a message from an unknown number than from "~Elon Musk".

I believe this happens regardless of whether the app has contact permissions or not.

The Whatsapp app could easily let you assign your own locally saved aliases to those phone numbers, when you're not sharing your address book. "Frankie" is a more usable moniker to me than "+12822745113". They could give us that ability in an afternoon. But they just won't. Because they want your address book. ALL OF IT.

I wish there were some kind of "modern tech" technical review panel on board in, say, EU and US regulatory institutions. Not to impose or forbid certain changes, but to curate an evilness score. Publicly.

And then if a monopolistic company consistently enshittifies things, when the time comes to apply a penalty (for some anti-competitive legal reason), the regulators will apply the reputation ("evilness") score as a multiplier (or divider, if you will) on the sum of the fine.

Evilness can't be measured and expressed fully objectively. So citizens should be able to override a reputation score mutation (remember, they're public) through a referendum.

An advantage of this approach would be that it could increase citizen awareness that things don't have to be this shitty. I'm occasionally amazed by how friends and colleagues put up with being pushed around by their OSes, their apps, their phones, sometimes to the point that cognitive dissonance makes them into apostate apologists.

> Phone numbers -> name resolution is done using your contact list. At least last time I checked.

Nope. With contacts permission granted, unknown numbers turn into ~names (per user's own profile) automatically. When you revoke the permission, the ~name is hidden to punish you.

> [...] there's no guarantee that my username reflects who I really am. Feels rightly more suspicious IMO to see a message from an unknown number than from "~Elon Musk".

It's an entirely separate problem, and as old as mail itself (which predates computers by many millenia). Would you know whether to trust [email protected], without looking it up?

> Would you know whether to trust [email protected], without looking it up?

I would hate to dismiss someone for a troll only to realize they are not the real elon musk

I discovered the other day that WhatsApp (on Android at least) will not let you start a conversation with someone without selecting them from your contacts.

> Meanwhile, WhatsApp still "punishes" users for denying contacts access by hiding everyone's names

Huh, had no idea that's why I only see numbers.

If I do allow contacts, does it show the name from contacts, rather than whatever display name they chose?

If so then I guess that's kind of a "technically we need contacts to display names, which are resolved locally" deal. But Apple could push back "you're big enough to plumb a display name through, not just resolve locally, and deal with spam implications" if they wanted to take a hard stand.