Sometimes I think HN people were born out of thin air and don't have families. That or mine is special, because if I said to them to change from WhatsApp to whatever in the basis of privacy concerns they'd say that: 1. FB already knows everything about them (btw, a social network the still use) 2. They'd lost contact with a lot of people

And all this without taking into account features that can make the product even more pervasive (I'm thinking payments)

The problem is that once a product becomes the de facto solution and everyone is onboard, is hard to change it, specially one with network effects. If it wasn't we would be using e.g. other search engines, wouldn't be?

Finally, I'd say the announcement of this change is perfectly timed: just after Christmas and in the middle of a pandemic. By the time we meet again with our extended families and we do the de rigueur holidays' technical support this change will have been forgotten by most people ;)