I guess you have to admire Facebook in a way. They figured out a way to make literally everyone a "customer", whether they consent or not, whether they pay or not, whether they actually directly interact with Facebook or not. (shadow profiles and tracking) They don't have to answer to the users of Facebook (and they especially don't have to answer to shadow profiles), because we aren't the actual customers - the customers are the data miners, ad agencies, etc. Even people deleting WhatsApp or even Facebook itself are not safe - more or less, if you continue to use the Internet, you're on their radar.
While I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, Facebook has proven time and time and time and time again that the regular users are not their priority (other than how much money the data collected from those users can make the company). They've shown multiple times that they cannot be trusted. I don't blame anyone for being weary of the change, and their "we swear it's not what you think" approach seems akin to the abusive partner begging for another chance because "I didn't mean it and I won't do it again". And there's enough people out there who want the good times so badly (the services FB and company do offer to end users) that they're willing to overlook the bad times (privacy violation, data collection/harvesting/sale, etc.) no matter how abusive or wrong...