No one cared about encryption even when WhatsApp rolled out their E2E, most users still don't understand or know what it is.
WhatsApp decided to roll it out but and it's good for them, but I personally think it was a combination of an internal ideology as well as the ability to spin it off and sell it as hey look at this new feature.
And of course it offers them protection from future leaks as well as gives them something to leverage if the Intercept publishes another snowden leak this time aimed at WhatsApp specifically and say hey we knew about this, we fixed it, don't worry keep using our app!
I don't quite understand your argument. You're saying they didn't do it to satisfy tech savvy users, but they did it because they might need to satisfy those users when they're hit up about it in the future?
There are plenty of us that do care about it. Sure, they didn't have to do it, they still would have had plenty of users - but they chose to do it.
The argument is that knowledge and understanding of encryption is limited to a very small audience even amongst "tech savvy" users.
Even if you only take software developers the vast majority of them does not understands or "cares" about encryption, it's just the hard truth of the matter.
WhatsApp did it because they could do it in a way that was beneficial to them coupled quite likely with internal ideological reasons to roll it out.
It's a positive spin that can be spun in the tech and non-tech media and could be coupled to improve their reputation as long as it's being run with the overall privacy / encryption debate stories.
It also future proofs their platform that when they do come under direct fire they don't have to be seen as reactive.
