Original poster explained that the functionality is having a contact list. WhatsApp will either access and use ALL your contacts or none on iPhone as well as android. Having jumped through many hoops to preserve conversations without leaking contacts, I’m highly attuned to this…
nope. he literally wrote "cannot initiate messages if you don't give it access to your contacts" and that's false on iphone. on iphone whatsapp has its own separate contact list if you don't give it access. and it is like this for years.
Not true in India. WhatsApp initially worked without access to the Contact list, and you could send a message to someone by typing their number directly in WhatsApp. But after a few updates, it does not allow you to start any new conversation without access to the contact list. And if you still ignore it, further updates prevent you from using WhatsApp at all unless you give it access to the contact list.
I doubt whatsapp is customized per country and no idea what's going on there. For me it was like this probably 4-5 years ago. Right now whatsapp on iphone allows me to create a new contact and then message that contact. The contact is only saved in whatsapp. App has no access to my contacts.
Recent iOS versions allow you to share only a small subset of contacts, which is really useful for apps like these