Nah, not that easy peasy.

As I said I value privacy much but not to the point where it begins to ruin all my social life. Sure, I could get my friends switching to SimpleX (which prefer).

However, not using Whatsapp would be like a social isolation. All group chats take place there - that's the main issue which holds me back. I could chat with my friends individually over SimpleX but would be isolated from group activities. These play a really important role in our communication.

Sure, I could aks someone to keep me up to date. No, I wont.

Maybe I can ditch Whatsapp as the last bigtech service I use in future by connecting to new friends over SimpleX directly.

Regarding Signal: Personally, I don't think phonenumbers are used there to help govs identifying users intentonally. Coming from Whatsapp you have all your conatcts using Signal there, without having to ask them for a username or a link to connect. I believe it's about comfort and avoiding to overwhelm people switching from apps like Whatsapp.