WhatsApp Feature Wishlist

  1. Have an auto-respond facility while I’m driving/on vacation/busy
  2. Have a SPAM facility where I could (not block) but SPAM a chat if I didn’t want to get messages from it
  3. Have a way to discreetly exit a group without making it obvious to everyone else on the group
  4. Have a way to create categories of chats (business, family, friends etc) and shift those categories as per my preferences

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Nice wishlist but misses the cardinal principle “When the product is free, the user is the product”.

WhatsApp users like you and me are Product, not Customer. S/he that’s paying WhatsApp to keep the lights on is the Customer. Whoever that is, for all we know, WhatsApp might be alleviating their painpoints and fulfilling their wishlists.

That said, there’s a good reason why item #3 on the above wishlist is not and should not be supported: Technically, every Group Member should be sensitized to who else is there on the same Group. That’s why it becomes necessary to announce Joiners and Leavers proactively to Everyone in the Group. Just imagine you and Tom are Members in a Group with a few others. If Tom leaves the Group and you were not alerted about it, you could be sending out a message to the Group assuming that Tom has received it. This would be a wrong assumption and could cause communication gaps.

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Can relate to  point 3; have so many groups where I don’t participate but can’t leave without making noise.

What’s done is done but, in future, you could prevent yourself from being added to Groups randomly by others. In other words, you join a Group if you want to, else you don’t. ICYMI, it’s possible to setup the latest version of WhatsApp such that others can only send you an Invite to join a Group, not just add you automatically. In other words, like WeChat or LinkedIn. If you want to join the Group, accept the Invite. If you don’t want to join the Group, do nothing. Only if you accept is your joining notified to all Group Members. If you do nothing, no alert goes to the Group saying “so-and-so has refused to join the Group”.