But is this request of contacts necessary for Yappari to work, or is just so you can have the list of contacts to pick one to send a message to? What I mean is adding an option to start with an empty contact list in Yappari, not making this initial request for contacts, if that makes any sense (I don't know how whatsapp works).

Understood, but I like how well integrated conversations is and I'm not sure pidgin support skype anyway, which for me is more important than having whatsapp. I managed to live without whatsapp for now, and even when it would be extremely nice to have it, I don't want to completely change the way I use the phone for it, but I really appreciate your feedback and the detailed explanation of the alternative!

I do wonder how there is only about 10 people with this problem, nobody use the integrated conversations? That's odd...