I was pleasantly surprised one evening, out with friends, as for some reason the entire group decided they ought to mutually verify on Signal. I'm not certain that "Very drunk people" are the best possible to perform the verification step in Signal, but it's certainly true that you'd have to be a very determined and skilled imposter to show up to somebody's birthday, drink and smoke for several hours in that company and then go through this elaborate verification ritual.
Over time such verification "decays". People buy a new phone, that sort of thing, but it was a healthy boost in one inexplicable moment.
Are you still on WhatsApp? If yes, then that's the reason. Trying to move a whole group over when you're willing to compromise is a recipe for failure because everybody would get inconvenienced for something that's only somewhat important to you.
It's like: should we all go to a vegan restaurant instead of the usual steakhouse because you decided you want to "try" being vegan this Friday night, of all nights. Just try it out another day and let us have our fun, Fred.
If you were not on WhatsApp at all, then it becomes a balance of : tiny per-person inconvenience versus 100% clear-cut decision on your part. Oh you've converted to whatever religion and can't have pork anymore? Now we have a choice between not inviting you at all, or trying the restaurant next door.
That would actually be marginally better. No everyone is on f-ing Snapchat. I'm in Denmark, which like the US is pretty big on iMessage, so originally we where using that. Then my sister got an Android phone, and the group chat obviously broken, because no RCS back then.
Everyone has SMS, Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and Instagram (except me for Meta products). So no one is really keen on adding a fifth app, where for me it would remove Snapchat, bringing me down to just SMS and Signal.
Over time such verification "decays". People buy a new phone, that sort of thing, but it was a healthy boost in one inexplicable moment.