those are literal public forums people go to expose themselves. you don't have a very good point.
If I understand it correctly, people use it mainly because MMS was a dumpster fire and WA was the first platform which got critical mass in most countries, which it achieved by being both pretty good overall and by being cross-platform.
The encryption is a nice bonus that everybody likes, but you can't prove that is a primary or even major reason why plumbers in India, tour guides in Dubai, and school parent groups in the US all choose to communicate with it, personally and professionally. If anything, I feel like Signal must have by now poached a good number of the people whose main concern is "How encrypted is it?"
Also, Gmail is not a public forum and people don't mind that it's 'ad-ridden' either.
i don't think people join because it's encrypted, but they wouldn't use when it's not. it too can became the dumpsterfire that sms was/is.
