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I don’t understand the way this was implemented. They are bound to get in trouble with Google for this, but they can’t easily pull the feature. They can’t just

I don’t understand the way this was implemented. They are bound to get in trouble with Google for this, but they can’t easily pull the feature. They can’t just be like „oh you’ve had translate for two weeks now, but now we can’t pay for it, so it’s gone.“ What is the long term thinking behind this? Or is this just developers and management not communicating?

zenexer 5y ago
“Google cut us off—they’re the bad guys, not us. Blame them.” …but with more elegant phrasing.
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  s/elegant phrasing/corporate doublespeak blah blah blah on 31st of February 1970 Google unanimously decided to terminate our access to their Translate API blah blah blah blah
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    This is Telegram. They are actually known for elegant phrasing, not corporate doublespeak.
  - zenexer 5y ago
    Telegram knows how to play the PR game. It’s going to be a bit more elegant than that, with a “we will rise from the ashes” tone. They know what they’re doing, and I doubt they had any intention of getting away with this.
simias 5y ago
Yeah I'm a bit shocked honestly that it made it into an application as widely used as Telegram. It's bound to be detected eventually and the feature will suddenly break. Such a strange software engineering decision. They can't even plausibly pretend that they didn't know and it's all a big misunderstanding given the lengths they went to obfuscate it in the code.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
This seems like one of those features that leadership demanded with a “just make it happen” decree and no budget for API calls. Then some developers facing a deadline cobbled together something that “just made it happen” so they could kick the can down the road with something that worked, ideally long enough to collect their bonuses and find a new job so it becomes someone else’s problem. Or maybe Telegram the company just likes to abuse other people’s things and see how long they can get away with bad behavior. Who knows.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Don't really think telegram works this way, you are imagining it like a Big N
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Telegram problem is that unlike WhatsApp they don't have a billion dollar corporation backing them. I wouldn't be surprised if they were bleeding money.
ComodoHacker 5y ago
> They are bound to get in trouble with Google for this From first look, I don't think they are. Telegram gets a new feature, Google gets more data to mine. It's a win-win. I just hope they'll be clear with their users about sending data to Google.

zenexer 5y ago

“Google cut us off—they’re the bad guys, not us. Blame them.” …but with more elegant phrasing.

sgjohnson 5y ago
s/elegant phrasing/corporate doublespeak blah blah blah on 31st of February 1970 Google unanimously decided to terminate our access to their Translate API blah blah blah blah
- skinkestek 5y ago
  This is Telegram. They are actually known for elegant phrasing, not corporate doublespeak.
- zenexer 5y ago
  Telegram knows how to play the PR game. It’s going to be a bit more elegant than that, with a “we will rise from the ashes” tone. They know what they’re doing, and I doubt they had any intention of getting away with this.

simias 5y ago

Yeah I'm a bit shocked honestly that it made it into an application as widely used as Telegram. It's bound to be detected eventually and the feature will suddenly break. Such a strange software engineering decision. They can't even plausibly pretend that they didn't know and it's all a big misunderstanding given the lengths they went to obfuscate it in the code.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

This seems like one of those features that leadership demanded with a “just make it happen” decree and no budget for API calls. Then some developers facing a deadline cobbled together something that “just made it happen” so they could kick the can down the road with something that worked, ideally long enough to collect their bonuses and find a new job so it becomes someone else’s problem. Or maybe Telegram the company just likes to abuse other people’s things and see how long they can get away with bad behavior. Who knows.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Don't really think telegram works this way, you are imagining it like a Big N
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Telegram problem is that unlike WhatsApp they don't have a billion dollar corporation backing them. I wouldn't be surprised if they were bleeding money.

ComodoHacker 5y ago

> They are bound to get in trouble with Google for this From first look, I don't think they are. Telegram gets a new feature, Google gets more data to mine. It's a win-win. I just hope they'll be clear with their users about sending data to Google.