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I love the Telegram UX but have always been wary of its owner’s benevolence. They have bootstrapped an amazing platform and I hope they are able to get a strong

I love the Telegram UX but have always been wary of its owner’s benevolence. They have bootstrapped an amazing platform and I hope they are able to get a strong ROI without compromising the great community they have built.

0xy 5y ago
Signal is similarly backrolled by wealthy benefactors from Whatsapp, so this "benevolence" is not unique. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be suspicious though, because Signal is a cautionary tale already (MobileCoin debacle and closed source server code).
- captn3m0 5y ago
  Telegram has much higher infrastructure costs due to their "unlimited size uploads", and channels/groups being non-e2ee = everything is stored forever. Signal could run on benevolence. Telegram's debts were at 770M USD earlier this year. (https://archive.md/mGtgp https://archive.md/mGtgp)
  - 0xy 5y ago
    I think Pavel isn't sweating about 5% of his net worth being tied up in an extremely popular passion project of his. Telegram isn't really just a messenger, it's an anti-censorship system. In fact, Telegram's burn rate would have to increase by roughly 3,000 to 5,000% for it to even make a yearly dent in his fortune, assuming he's invested in any kind of reasonable mix of assets.
    - captn3m0 5y ago
      If you're using the 17B net worth figure (the one reported by Forbes), it is mostly just based on Telegram's quoted-valuation jumping to 30-40B. A lot of his net-worth is telegram equity at this point, and he's using debt financing to keep telegram operational. The burn rate was "few hundred million dollars per year", as per Durov a year ago. Telegram has grown 50-60% in users since (350M->550M as per the graph on Wikipedia).
      - 0xy 5y ago
        You're probably right, I stand corrected. One extra point is that burn rate was likely a fraction of that figure for most of Telegram's history when it was much smaller. Telegram really only exploded to meteoric heights within the last few years. 50-60% increase in users also isn't necessarily indicative of a similar rise in expenses. The cost to store files and stream them has basically only ever gone down, and you can easily cut service costs by optimizing data storage, archiving content etc. Loading content from years ago on Telegram is very slow, indicating heavily optimized tiered storage. They're clearly optimizing for burn rate to some extent.
        captn3m0 5y ago
        Completely agree on all points (their infrastructure costs should still be in the same ballpark as before, but this growth will mark a dent). No matter how much they optimize, Durov can't keep it running infinitely.

0xy 5y ago

Signal is similarly backrolled by wealthy benefactors from Whatsapp, so this "benevolence" is not unique. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be suspicious though, because Signal is a cautionary tale already (MobileCoin debacle and closed source server code).

captn3m0 5y ago
Telegram has much higher infrastructure costs due to their "unlimited size uploads", and channels/groups being non-e2ee = everything is stored forever. Signal could run on benevolence. Telegram's debts were at 770M USD earlier this year. (https://archive.md/mGtgp https://archive.md/mGtgp)
- 0xy 5y ago
  I think Pavel isn't sweating about 5% of his net worth being tied up in an extremely popular passion project of his. Telegram isn't really just a messenger, it's an anti-censorship system. In fact, Telegram's burn rate would have to increase by roughly 3,000 to 5,000% for it to even make a yearly dent in his fortune, assuming he's invested in any kind of reasonable mix of assets.
  - captn3m0 5y ago
    If you're using the 17B net worth figure (the one reported by Forbes), it is mostly just based on Telegram's quoted-valuation jumping to 30-40B. A lot of his net-worth is telegram equity at this point, and he's using debt financing to keep telegram operational. The burn rate was "few hundred million dollars per year", as per Durov a year ago. Telegram has grown 50-60% in users since (350M->550M as per the graph on Wikipedia).
    - 0xy 5y ago
      You're probably right, I stand corrected. One extra point is that burn rate was likely a fraction of that figure for most of Telegram's history when it was much smaller. Telegram really only exploded to meteoric heights within the last few years. 50-60% increase in users also isn't necessarily indicative of a similar rise in expenses. The cost to store files and stream them has basically only ever gone down, and you can easily cut service costs by optimizing data storage, archiving content etc. Loading content from years ago on Telegram is very slow, indicating heavily optimized tiered storage. They're clearly optimizing for burn rate to some extent.
      - captn3m0 5y ago
        Completely agree on all points (their infrastructure costs should still be in the same ballpark as before, but this growth will mark a dent). No matter how much they optimize, Durov can't keep it running infinitely.