Same here. Even if I am not a frequent roamer, I changed country every now and then. Whatsapp already shows how painful is to use ephemeral phone numbers as id

Same here. Even if I am not a frequent roamer, I changed country every now and then. Whatsapp already shows how painful is to use ephemeral phone numbers as identity: when you change your number, even with their migration procedure, you still have to notify all your contacts, because at most numbers are authentication, not identification. Doesn't strike me as unusual however that corporations with obsession on control and snooping are trying to conflate the two.