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If you use Google to backup your WhatsApp chats (most people do), Google can already read your messages, because the backup is not encrypted.

I think this hasn't been true for a couple of years now

Encrypted backups are "off" by default and need to be explicity turned on.

I haven't installed Whatsapp from scratch in a long time, aren't backups off by default, overall?

They're off by default, but there are regular prompts to enable them and I guess most people eventually do it.