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Looks like it's just a matter of time when I have to find an alternative then. Making a good service for the users and turning profit for shareholders are typic

Looks like it's just a matter of time when I have to find an alternative then. Making a good service for the users and turning profit for shareholders are typically mutually exclusive goals.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
The Durov's may be benevolent owners, but Telegram also has a bunch of VC firms as owners. They are shareholders with seats on the board who want a payout, even if they don't IPO.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  That's true. With VC funding there's usually some grace period for users before the milking begins, usually in the form of an IPO.
Arnt 3y ago
It depends on how much of the income comes from the users. Remember that 100% of the profit for the shareholders comes from the income, so the profit depends on keeping the payers happy.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  I suppose so if the paid subscriptions turn out to be popular enough. Otherwise the revenue will have to come from advertisements and other user unfriendly sources.
pndy 3y ago
At the moment it isn't bad - the subscription ad bar shows once per year I believe. But locking voice messages in privacy settings behind paywall isn't nice. It seems they also locked text messages from everyone behind premium quite recently because I'm pretty sure you could set it up to contacts only without paying. Now it's "contacts and premium users"; so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". I guess they'll start locking more features soon. 150PLN/~35€ per year isn't something I'd pay for an messenger app. As for alternatives, I'm looking back at Signal which was installed by few friends of mine already but they were rather experimenting with it than becoming active users. There's Session, SimpleX which both look quite interesting, and of course there's Matrix but none interested anyone from my circles and I doubt it would do. They're singing "I won't install another app on my phone" and "Messenger is enough for me, why I would install that" tunes.
- karmakurtisaani 3y ago
  > so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". This did not cross my mind until you wrote it, but I would not be surprised the slightest if it went like this. AI spambots + direct access to people's message apps is not a future I'm looking forward to. The moment that happens and Telegram gives me a hint that with paid subscription I can avoid the spam, I am out of there. > They're singing "I won't install another app on my on my phone" I used to have an old as hell smart phone with limited memory, so I sympathise with this somewhat. Still, changing apps is a small price to pay if things start looking bad with Telegram.

Looks like it's just a matter of time when I have to find an alternative then. Making a good service for the users and turning profit for shareholders are typically mutually exclusive goals.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

The Durov's may be benevolent owners, but Telegram also has a bunch of VC firms as owners. They are shareholders with seats on the board who want a payout, even if they don't IPO.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago
That's true. With VC funding there's usually some grace period for users before the milking begins, usually in the form of an IPO.

Arnt 3y ago

It depends on how much of the income comes from the users. Remember that 100% of the profit for the shareholders comes from the income, so the profit depends on keeping the payers happy.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago
I suppose so if the paid subscriptions turn out to be popular enough. Otherwise the revenue will have to come from advertisements and other user unfriendly sources.

pndy 3y ago

At the moment it isn't bad - the subscription ad bar shows once per year I believe. But locking voice messages in privacy settings behind paywall isn't nice. It seems they also locked text messages from everyone behind premium quite recently because I'm pretty sure you could set it up to contacts only without paying. Now it's "contacts and premium users"; so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". I guess they'll start locking more features soon. 150PLN/~35€ per year isn't something I'd pay for an messenger app. As for alternatives, I'm looking back at Signal which was installed by few friends of mine already but they were rather experimenting with it than becoming active users. There's Session, SimpleX which both look quite interesting, and of course there's Matrix but none interested anyone from my circles and I doubt it would do. They're singing "I won't install another app on my phone" and "Messenger is enough for me, why I would install that" tunes.

karmakurtisaani 3y ago
> so basically "you can get spam from unknown contacts unless you pay us for the feature". This did not cross my mind until you wrote it, but I would not be surprised the slightest if it went like this. AI spambots + direct access to people's message apps is not a future I'm looking forward to. The moment that happens and Telegram gives me a hint that with paid subscription I can avoid the spam, I am out of there. > They're singing "I won't install another app on my on my phone" I used to have an old as hell smart phone with limited memory, so I sympathise with this somewhat. Still, changing apps is a small price to pay if things start looking bad with Telegram.