Email, docs, music, maps etc have reasonable alternatives and you don’t depend on others to switch (a gmail user will receive my email from tuta). But with WhatsApp either you conceal and use it or you just don’t talk to people (tried convincing them to switch to signal and it simply doesn’t happen)
How do you deal with it?
I have tried not using it and it is not worth it for me. The problem was not close friends. But everyone else including all other than my direct family if i don’t have WhatsApp my family just send sms and at that point I thing WhatsApp is better at least its end to end encrypted. You also exclude your self form groups that get created at clubs/association(i don’t know the English word).
I decide some time ago that my person life is more important that privacy because my mental health suffered because of stressing about privacy and cutting my self socially off to some extend by not using WhatsApp.
If you use android you can install it in a privet space or a second profile so it don’t run all the time in the background.