[alexgieg]

Many countries don't use SMS, they use WhatsApp, for almost everything, from chatting with family and friends, to business contacts, to talking with your bank manager, to medical appointments, to 2FA, and even to transfer money.

That's what prevents most people on those countries from having a dumb phone, and forces even the most illiterate of 90yo great-grandmothers to learn how to navigate around Android or iOS, all the while placing uncountable many calls to their great-grandchildren because they opened up some random app by accident and don't remember how to get back to the only thing that matters: WhatsApp (talking from experience here).

A WhatsApp-capable quasi-dumb-phone would be a godsend for such places, provided it's cheap enough. At $500 this one definitely isn't, not when an ultra-cheap Android smartphone capable of running WhatsApp costs $90. But if this one sells well, cheaper ones may become viable down the line due to economies of scale. I surely hope that happens.

[mingus88]

As long as Meta owns WhatsApp, don’t hold your breath.

They operate the service to get your personal data into the hands of their customers (advertisers) so why would they support a dumb client that is designed to be incompatible with their business model

[renaudg]

WhatsApp messages are end to end encrypted.

It doesn't have the same business model as the rest of Meta (which by the way, is to get advertisers products in front of users eyeballs, optimized by their personal data. Not to hand said personal data over to advertisers or anybody else, which would be a bit dumb as it's Meta's crown jewels)