WhatsApp never had persistent server-side storage. I believe they keep media binary blobs only for a few days after each recipient has downloaded them.

If you delete your local copy, that's arguably on you – there was never any promise that WhatsApp would be holding your media for re-downloads forever.

> If you delete your local copy, that's arguably on you

I don’t know if you’ve participated in a large group chat, but on those occasions, lots of media is being sent to each other.

I am not that eager to have every media sent in the group chat stored on my Photos library. I don’t think anyone wants that.

So I guess everyone, including me turns off that feature (automatically storing images received), meaning no one will eventually have that image stored on the device which causes the data loss after a while.

Now, there is a backup feature in iOS, but it can only backup to iCloud drive, which I don’t pay for so the limit will be exceeded pretty quickly.

I wouldn’t put the blame on anyone for this, except Whatsapp.

Why should WhatsApp pay for the indefinite storage of your media any more than iCloud?

Of course WhatsApp could start charging for storage in the same way that Apple does, but given that WhatsApp is pretty focused on local-only message storage at the moment (similar to Signal, and unlike e.g. Telegram or Facebook Messenger), I don't think that would be a very popular feature.

Maybe they could offer storage backup to other providers than iCloud, like on Android. But that’s just one idea.

Either way, I seriously think there is a flaw in the design, especially in the scenario I provided. Had I know that WhatsApp would behave this way beforehand, I wouldn’t have used it.