Those people are in for a rude awakening when it turns out an erased person can still give them a wack across the head.
VR hype/doom really tends to downplay the importance of material reality. VR offers no shelter, no food, no sex, no true impact in the world. It is only a platform for media.
Whatsapp CANNOT read messages when e2ee is enabled, this client-side snooping was discussed when the protocol was first implemented. Whatsapp collects a ton of metadata and social graph info, but not message content.