Signal is similarly coercive about contacts - only "Yes" and "Not now", and once they get them, there's no way to delete the data they've got.
Desktop Signal still keeps showing me other people who also have Signal, but whom I've never even tried to contact via Signal, only because years ago I've mistakenly let them see my contacts.
You can deny the Signal app the address book permission and it still works.
Signal contact discovery is also the most privacy preserving approach available anywhere, using only the partial hash of their phone number. You don't have to share your contacts -- but yes, your contacts may share their truncated hash list, and hence discover that your number is tied to a Signal identity, but it is on their phone that the number maps to a name, not in any network traffic or on a Signal server.
We're really not getting any better solutions until secure MPC becomes more practical.
No, that points to prioritization issues. Many other features were developed and added over the years, but backup was not. It's not an accident, it's a result of multiple decisions where backing up user data was not seen as important.
What you call WhatsApp history is other people being able to read your messages.
WhatsApp is violently agressive in demanding you use your phone and give access to your contacts. You can't use it without feeling violated.