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Food for thought: Telegram estimated costs for 2021 based on 675 million monthly active users (MAU) are $220 Million. Yet, the app is somehow free to use. Where
by dt3ft 5y ago
Food for thought: Telegram estimated costs for 2021 based on 675 million monthly active users (MAU) are $220 Million. Yet, the app is somehow free to use. Where does the money to cover the costs come from?
- jakub_g 5y ago$220M is not pocket money, but Durov's net worth is apparently $17.2B, so he could afford it for a few more years https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/ https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/
- yawaworht1978 5y agoThanks for this, what about Moxie? Who covers those costs?
- kenneth 5y agoSignal is funded by a $50M donation from Brian Acton, who made billions selling WhatsApp to Facebook.
- stef25 5y agoHe was listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2021, with a net worth of $17.2 billion. His fortune is largely driven by his ownership of Telegram - Wikipedia. So billions from Telegram, a free app. What am I missing?
- jakub_g 5y agoThat's a valid point. It's free now but they do have some plans for monetization (ads in channels with huge numbers of subscribers etc.)
- fragileone 5y agoTelegram isn't end-to-end encypted except for some 1:1 chats. The unencrypted chat data is likely being sold, as their privacy policy allows.
- viraptor 5y agoAt least the story of them being dodgy (in terms of origin/funding) and playing up encryption which is not enabled by default is pretty well documented by now. I get that people really like the UX of the app, but I wish more of them approached Telegram with "Russian gov has access to my unencrypted messages, but maybe the encrypted ones too" mindset.
- rorykoehler 5y agoIf that is the case normies living outside of the sphere of Russian influence have little to worry about surely. Better Russia than your own government.