I think Signal and Matrix are more trustworthy and auditable.
However I also think more people are on WhatsApp than those two (and possibly more) combined and people want to just use it probably for that reason.
I saw some of my contacts sign up to Signal firstly after the privacy fiasco then again in smaller quantity after the major outage. I deleted WhatsApp a while ago but I decided to re-install it again recently or basically risk losing contact with some old friends. In fairness I did try and convert people to Signal; I managed to convince a couple - so not all was lost.
I tried signal among my close-y circle and we had no issue with nobody else there. But it didn’t stick because of how it looks and works. When I read reports like yours it feels like you don’t use all of the features, but what repelled us was not that inertia thing.
Sadly no, I should have written that down (a good habit I’ve only got later). But I have vague memories that some of the issues were very basic, like replying or images or chat handling, and that we mostly expressed the same concerns. It’s not unusable, but it just didn’t feel right as a whole.
It should also be noted that we are not privacy-critical, just like these “numb people” I believe, who choose over little details rather than a big picture. Our background at the time was whatsapp, telegram and viber.
However I also think more people are on WhatsApp than those two (and possibly more) combined and people want to just use it probably for that reason.
I saw some of my contacts sign up to Signal firstly after the privacy fiasco then again in smaller quantity after the major outage. I deleted WhatsApp a while ago but I decided to re-install it again recently or basically risk losing contact with some old friends. In fairness I did try and convert people to Signal; I managed to convince a couple - so not all was lost.