Telegram's future plans | Hacker News Reader

Telegram's future plans

t.me

39 pointscristaloleg17 comments

I think telegram is one of the operating systems of the future, most just haven't realized it yet.

Using their API and System to develop apps is a breath of fresh air after years of bad and broken web APIs, non portable and cluttered native GUI frameworks, and app development riddled with incidental complexity.

They give you everything you need, including payment, custom keyboards, embedded media, room access. But in a super straightforward simple way. It's just ridiculous how quickly you can iterate on apps that use telegram as their frontend, so much cuft is left behind.

Telegram allows you to write apps that solve real needs, in a humane way. And as a dev that gives me hope that our industry isn't lost just yet.

Yes! The APIs are really nice compared to other alternatives.

These are called super apps.

Yeah but Telegram still does less. It's not your one stop digital life that is common in the chinese app space.

Telegram is still only focused on conversational interactions, it's just darn good at it.

I'm glad that it isn't a super app because that would actually reintroduce all that complexity that they've managed to strip away.

The coolest thing about Telegram?

Its Windows Desktop app is portable. Por-ta-ble. Fucking portable. Nothing to install, it can run off a USB stick or a folder in the PC.

And their mac app isn't electron garbage! It's amazing that they can pull off real native apps for each platform yet companies like Slack with tons of cash can't.

Running ads won't cover their expenses.

Telegram's server costs are massive. They store all messages, unlike whatsapp and signal, which only act as a relay.

Telegram has much higher file limits (2GB per file and unlimited files) than all other apps. It's used a lot by pirates to share movies and shows. Basically every show comes on some channel/group in Telegram.

So, what would be the viable alternative? Selling user data?

Genuine question: are there business that are not viable unless you sell user data?

Telegram was planning to launch their own cryptocurrency named "grams". If they had launched it, it would have been massive.

Due to drama with the SEC, they shut it down.

https://telegram.org/blog/ton-gram-notice

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21256407/telegram-cryptoc...

Offering inexpensive paid plans to store conversation and file sharing history as a paid feature instead of for free.

Something like whatsapp's original plan of $1/user/yr, except for you actually get something out of it.

Another method would be offering corporate/enterprise support plans for anyone using it in a business setting or as a base for app development.

Social networks? :)

Maybe something similar to what Slack does? Or even more invasive, like files expiring after some time if you're a free user?

I'm looking forward to this. I use Telegram everyday to communicate with friends and family and Durov is giving me trust that he isn't going to ruin the app.

Dang, even I submitted this, but apparently all t.me links are immediately shadow banned.

I think you should whitelist t.me/durov/

You must be one of those drug dealers from this article from the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25520200

Thank you for your wonderful contribution to HN.
What's the point of calling me a drug dealer lol? Just wanna know what your intention was?

Sorry, that was me attempting being sarcastic. The link from the post I shared labels Telegram as "longtime drug-dealer haven", but unlike this one it wasn't shadow-banned.
I just wanted to point out to (IMHO) awkward selection.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com