[lorenzhs]

That's not an automatism nor inevitable, though. I don't have either of these apps on my phone. And both iOS and now Android have these dynamic permission dialogs where you can refuse access to your contacts. It may be inconvenient to use a messaging app without granting it access to your contacts, but I think all of them work that way on iOS. Refusing to work without access would be against the iOS guidelines iirc.

But that wasn't the article's concern at all, as you pointed out in another comment.