Getting into debt with highest interest rate in decades doesn't bode well for the future. On the other hand, VC funding seems to have dried up as well. Between rock and a hard place.
Telegram is one social network that has a huge potential for growth today. It is a dominant platform for War reporting from both sides. And it is not compromised by history of censorship, and CIA connections, like other social networks.
We will probably see it growing in US, as we get closer to elections, and censorship tightens!
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a fallacy that does seem to be driving increasing numbers of Americans to positions that are indistinguishable from Russian talking points. Saves money for Putin’s troll factory at least.
That’s pure conspiracy thinking. Their service has been more or less blocked countrywide in Russia multiple times in the past, without too much success. Pavlov Durov has been publicly anti Putin since 2014 and exiled himself following euromaiden. Telegram has never been a Russian company, it was Berlin based, and is now in Dubai.
All of this has been public information since years, there isn’t any proof of anything malevolent happening with the service.
the revenue comes from the future acquirer of the company paying out to the current shareholders. I don't really believe consumers of telegram are willing to pay for it. It's in the same boat financially as twitter - but got better PR atm.
Chinese chat apps have monetised really well through e-commerce. Admittedly this success hasn't be achieved by WhatsApp etc, so it not trivial to replicate.
I don’t know what you’re implying exactly but Telegram does collaborate with local laws in countries they operate, and that’s counting takedowns and criminal investigations when illegal content is being shared, as every business entity should do.
Telegram is based in UAE, a country famous for Totok, a social network designed to spy on you.
The UAE is an absolute monarchy, and the law is a little more openly a tool if the state than in the west. A company with legal challenges exists there because the state wants it to.
The UAE looks unaligned but in a real way it is part of a Chinese Russian axis when it comes to this sort of thing. For example totok was based on Chinese spyware.
For those of us who don't share truly sensitive information, I'm sure it's fine, but Ukrainian war reporters probably shouldn't have it installed.
Durov's worth more than 10 billion and he bought a quarter of the bonds himself, so at the end of the day he can keep the lights on for a long time. That's basically how Telegram has been financed up until now.
Extreme taxes compared to Dubai, a government (or the EU on that matter) wanting to permanently dismantle end-to-end encryption, slow local authorities (however I don’t know the situation in Dubai concerning that - I assume though nearly every state on the earth is more efficient than Germany regarding bureaucracy), local authorities that often can’t communicate in English...
Germany is not an attractive place for smaller companies, especially for those formed outside of the country and not perfectly familiar with the German language.
That's a logical choice. If you ever get in trouble there, you'll find that unlike in Germany, there won't be any bureaucracy or red tape at all. They'll deal with you very... efficiently.
It took me a long time to realize that in the big picture, all those inefficiencies are actually upsides.
Most of what governments do is harmful to society. The more inefficient and inept they are at it, the better.
Sure, it may be an inconvenience sometimes. But it's nothing compared to the dystopian horror of what a truly efficient government would look like. The "ideal" government that works purely electronically through automatically-applied rules is the worst world I can imagine living in. Every additional day we can manage to hold off that future is a victory.
> Most of what governments do is harmful to society
Hard disagree. Some of what they do is harmful, and needs a vigilant and active population to keep at bay; but the vast vast majority is massively useful, or even critical. Decentralised (as in, not government managed/controlled/planned/regulated, where government could be anything from a single centralised one to a highly local one) infrastructure, education, consumer protections, healthcare, safety/security sound like a nightmare. Reminds me of thet libertarian utopia town with the bears (A Libertarian Walks into a Bear is a fun book).
> (On libertrarians) House cats. They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appeciate or understand.
Yeah, please instead let that ultra-capitalist liberalist worldview bloom! I so want Coca Cola putting cocaine into my drinks, or some “food” company optimizing for quantity over basic health codes, or drug companies selling non-working fakes with questionable qualities!
Governments, and their rules are one of the quintessential parts of our modern lives. Noone sane wants to live in the aforementioned utopia.
You lost hope in the government, but a good government is not focused on spying but on making life better, basically opposite of what you described. Governemnt can be efficient at building things, maintaining infrastructure, but not spying and controlling it's citizens.
Humm I've heard somethings about Dubai starting to require more than an 'empty room' for companies wanting to sell their services there or something like that, but not many more details
According to various comments, Telegram seems to be blocked there. Might be a smart arrangement for such services: Set up shop in a country that leaves you alone as long as you leave them alone (i.e. don't provide services there) but also ignores international inquiries and is small enough not to matter. And if Dubai ever plans to act on international pressure: An empty room is easily moved.
Telegram maintains a shell office in Dubai AFAIK. The Durovs live there as tax residents but the employees were based out of London for the most part iirc.
Telegram is probably the only app that I use that I'm completely fine with it automatically updating. Hard to find software that doesn't fk it up by adding stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat. Telegram has been solid across the web, android, linux and windows clients I've been using for years. For that reason, I bought telegram premium. Shame to hear they're still not breaking even, must be tough.
Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app.
Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
I don’t have a problem with their monetary model, because they don’t paywall any essential feature. and not in-your-face about it, and it really is one of the few apps I use on every single device I own.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. Telegram has been the most polished cross platform chat application since its release. All emoji are available without paying? There is no cryptocurrency involved? The whole application is free, and you can get some small benefits by paying a small amount, that’s the least predatory business model one could hope for.
Have you heard about the mess that was Durov’s channel some months ago? Telegram is now reserving and then selling usernames as NFTs for crypto on a new site: fragment.com
(Use a VPN since it blocks access from the US)
Durov first announced it on his channel and the large majority of the telegram community downvoted it to show disapproval of integrating NFTs and crypto into telegram [1]. Telegram/Durov’s response? Disable negative reactions and ignore it. For later posts, talk about how there was such a great response to them (because only negative reactions were disabled), and how they’re moving forward with it.
Then, when they started, what happened to the people with their old names? Telegram took them without warning [2]. And it wasn’t just any common names, multiple chats I was in had their name, their brand taken even though it was multiple semi-common words stringed together to 19+ characters.
[1] and [2] - I can’t find an online source currently on my phone. I can personally vouch for it, but I understand evidence would be appreciated. If anyone can find a source, that would be greatly appreciated.
> Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app.
You mean adding extra sets of emojis and not changing the existing ones? Paying for cosmetics is a pretty good way of monetizing.
> Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
It literally works better than all the "non opensource polished" apps. Looking at you Discord - a shame of a company to all users.
Last time I was in Dubai, Telegram was blocked and I needed to setup a proxy to get access. So it is ironic that they are headquartered there. Maybe it is not blocked there now, I do not know.
From my experience of constantly using both, Signal's UX is inferior unfortunately. On both macOS and iOS Signal feels like a second grade cross-platform app with a clunky Android feel (no ribbon effect, no animations, poor aesthetics).
Telegram's UX quality is far superior to any other messenger app that I've ever used. Its social functions are quite nice too, I think Telegram invented some of them before they were copied by the others.
The thing with Telegram though is that you can never trust a private company if you are a journalist, dissident or a government official. We don't know whether Pavel Durov is as independent as he wants us to believe he is. The big red flag in the Telegram story is why it's still not banned or censored in Russia. We don't know.
But all in all, kudos to those who have built it, they have my respect, Telegram is one of the best pieces of software at least among the messaging apps.
I also use both extensively and I agree, Telegram has the best UX of any messaging app. The desktop app is QT I think so it feels very snappy compared to Signal's electron app.
Signal's iOS app is a native Swift/UIKit app and open source however, so I'd encourage you to report any bugs or issues you find: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS
Element X is already out on iOS (as an early release which isn't feature complete yet): https://element.io/blog/element-x-experience-the-future-of-e.... We explicitly used Telegram as the UX yardstick to be at least as good at in terms of quality and performance (sync speed, smoothness of scrolling, proper native UI, etc)... while also being E2EE throughout (unlike Telegram).
Agreed that the classic Element iOS app was very buggy, which is why with Element X we completely rewrote it on top of matrix-rust-sdk, using SwiftUI for best-practice idiomatic native UI on top.
Unfortunately the server I use doesn't support sliding sync yet.
edit Also, how far is Element X? I just tried it out with a matrix.org account, and it still makes the pretty bad UX blunder of confusing private one-on-one chats with rooms. I don't doubt that they're rooms technically, but you really need to hide that fact from the user if you wish to reach Telegram's usability.
Not graphically, but they don't call these things "rooms" nor "channels" anywhere. I feel that's just confusing for most people and unnecessary for those who would understand it.
Perhaps I should make an issue out of this concern, but I'm a bit afraid that it won't matter: you guys would have done this by now if you thought about it like I do.
No, I totally agree that DMs should be called DMs in the UI, and Rooms should be called Rooms. Unfortunately, there's just a plain old blindspot here - i'll keep pointing out and we'll get it fixed.
Telegram was banned in Russia before it was restored in 2020. Wikipedia says Telegram agreed to cooperate with the Russian govt "help with extremism investigations"
The parent probably points to security. Telegram is insecure, this has been discussed many times before. (Rolled their own encryption, a master key, unencrypted group chats)
Thing is that telegram is a completely different app. It has features
for discovering and joining communities. Open or closed. Bots, etcetera. Both Signal and Whatsapp do not have that. It is more like a social network.
That said: it is insecure. Especially in war times that does not sound good. If you do not trust signal or whatsapp, there are other secure communication methods. But seriously: telegram is the worst.
Rolling their own crypto is only an advice for your average developer, not for a team of mathematics, who put out a bounty for anyone who can break it.
If I were a journalist, I wouldn’t use it for the leak of a lifetime. But for the common folks it is absolutely more than fine.
Indeed. I can see how this might be a problem for some people but CIA is not on my threat model at least right now. Russia might be, even though I'm probably not important enough for them to care. Still I wouldn't want anyone there be able to mine my data for even the slightest piece of info.
I have my issues with Telegram, but damn, the thing works. That's more than I can say about basically all the alternatives. The apps are designed and made well and the servers are pretty reliable.
Who'd have thought that it's so hard to make a chat app?
XMPP simply does not have enough Hype, it's just boring old technology that keeps working and getting better over time despite lack of funding and startups.
94 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadWe will probably see it growing in US, as we get closer to elections, and censorship tightens!
What platform would you recommend to people in Turkey, Iran, Africa... Or opposition in West that sometimes can not even get bank accounts?
It is a serious question! Russia is far away, it is not going to put you in jail. We need to communicate.
Or did I get that wrong?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Developmen...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia
All of this has been public information since years, there isn’t any proof of anything malevolent happening with the service.
IMHO - it would not be possible for him to leave russia alive without getting some tradeoff with Russian intelligence
$30 to 40 million for interest on this issue.
Telegram sold $1bn of bonds in March 2021, when rates were 25 bps, with a 7% coupon [1]. Rates are now 5.25%. Their new bonds should thus yield 12%+.
That implies a total annual interest bill over $100 million, with a refinancing in 2026 on $1bn. Not ideal.
[1] https://bondblox.com/news/messaging-app-telegram-sells-bonds...
The UAE is an absolute monarchy, and the law is a little more openly a tool if the state than in the west. A company with legal challenges exists there because the state wants it to.
The UAE looks unaligned but in a real way it is part of a Chinese Russian axis when it comes to this sort of thing. For example totok was based on Chinese spyware.
For those of us who don't share truly sensitive information, I'm sure it's fine, but Ukrainian war reporters probably shouldn't have it installed.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868
huh, I thought Telegram was still stationed in Germany. I wonder what made them move.
Germany is not an attractive place for smaller companies, especially for those formed outside of the country and not perfectly familiar with the German language.
It wouldn’t be on my list of reasons to leave a country.
Most of what governments do is harmful to society. The more inefficient and inept they are at it, the better.
Sure, it may be an inconvenience sometimes. But it's nothing compared to the dystopian horror of what a truly efficient government would look like. The "ideal" government that works purely electronically through automatically-applied rules is the worst world I can imagine living in. Every additional day we can manage to hold off that future is a victory.
Hard disagree. Some of what they do is harmful, and needs a vigilant and active population to keep at bay; but the vast vast majority is massively useful, or even critical. Decentralised (as in, not government managed/controlled/planned/regulated, where government could be anything from a single centralised one to a highly local one) infrastructure, education, consumer protections, healthcare, safety/security sound like a nightmare. Reminds me of thet libertarian utopia town with the bears (A Libertarian Walks into a Bear is a fun book).
> (On libertrarians) House cats. They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appeciate or understand.
~ John Spaulding
Governments, and their rules are one of the quintessential parts of our modern lives. Noone sane wants to live in the aforementioned utopia.
E: downvoted for this?
Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app.
Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
I don’t have a problem with their monetary model, because they don’t paywall any essential feature. and not in-your-face about it, and it really is one of the few apps I use on every single device I own.
Have you heard about the mess that was Durov’s channel some months ago? Telegram is now reserving and then selling usernames as NFTs for crypto on a new site: fragment.com (Use a VPN since it blocks access from the US)
Durov first announced it on his channel and the large majority of the telegram community downvoted it to show disapproval of integrating NFTs and crypto into telegram [1]. Telegram/Durov’s response? Disable negative reactions and ignore it. For later posts, talk about how there was such a great response to them (because only negative reactions were disabled), and how they’re moving forward with it.
Then, when they started, what happened to the people with their old names? Telegram took them without warning [2]. And it wasn’t just any common names, multiple chats I was in had their name, their brand taken even though it was multiple semi-common words stringed together to 19+ characters.
[1] and [2] - I can’t find an online source currently on my phone. I can personally vouch for it, but I understand evidence would be appreciated. If anyone can find a source, that would be greatly appreciated.
You mean adding extra sets of emojis and not changing the existing ones? Paying for cosmetics is a pretty good way of monetizing.
> Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.
It literally works better than all the "non opensource polished" apps. Looking at you Discord - a shame of a company to all users.
Telegram's UX quality is far superior to any other messenger app that I've ever used. Its social functions are quite nice too, I think Telegram invented some of them before they were copied by the others.
The thing with Telegram though is that you can never trust a private company if you are a journalist, dissident or a government official. We don't know whether Pavel Durov is as independent as he wants us to believe he is. The big red flag in the Telegram story is why it's still not banned or censored in Russia. We don't know.
But all in all, kudos to those who have built it, they have my respect, Telegram is one of the best pieces of software at least among the messaging apps.
Signal's iOS app is a native Swift/UIKit app and open source however, so I'd encourage you to report any bugs or issues you find: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS
Perhaps Matrix's upcoming Element X -client could reach that level of quality.
Agreed that the classic Element iOS app was very buggy, which is why with Element X we completely rewrote it on top of matrix-rust-sdk, using SwiftUI for best-practice idiomatic native UI on top.
edit Also, how far is Element X? I just tried it out with a matrix.org account, and it still makes the pretty bad UX blunder of confusing private one-on-one chats with rooms. I don't doubt that they're rooms technically, but you really need to hide that fact from the user if you wish to reach Telegram's usability.
Perhaps I should make an issue out of this concern, but I'm a bit afraid that it won't matter: you guys would have done this by now if you thought about it like I do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia
Thing is that telegram is a completely different app. It has features for discovering and joining communities. Open or closed. Bots, etcetera. Both Signal and Whatsapp do not have that. It is more like a social network.
That said: it is insecure. Especially in war times that does not sound good. If you do not trust signal or whatsapp, there are other secure communication methods. But seriously: telegram is the worst.
If I were a journalist, I wouldn’t use it for the leak of a lifetime. But for the common folks it is absolutely more than fine.
Just look into their PIN + Intel SGX scheme. Or lack of open-source client with reproducible builds.
Who'd have thought that it's so hard to make a chat app?