Advertising arrives on Telegram, but most users shouldn’t notice it: word of Durov

Nicola Leagues


23/12/2020 ore 09:38 – Updated on 23/12/2020 at 09:50

Pavel durov (read here if you would like to know more about him), the founder of Telegram, has just posted an interesting post about the future of the app itself.

Telegram is in fact approaching the 500 million active users, and with a billion in the lead, Durov also knows he can’t continue to subsidize personally the app, as has largely been done so far (for a project of this magnitude it takes hundreds of millions of dollars a year to move forward).

No, this it is not the announcement of the sale of Telegram. Durov is very clear about it: “we will not sell the company like the founders of WhatsApp did“. Telegram will remain independent and will continue to pursue the perfection and theintegrity; things that are impossible to achieve if you are part of a company (word of Durov).

There is another point on which Durov insists: Telegram is not going anywhere. It is not a project destined to die, indeed it is just at the beginning of its journey.

All noble ideals then, but the underlying problem remains: how will Telegram be financed from now on? And despite the good intentions expressed so far, here things get a little more nebulae.

“Telegram will start generating revenue, starting next year“. How? Durov doesn’t really say that explicitly, but it’s pretty clear that we’re talking about advertising, which will be introduced in a manner non-intrusive, to the point that most users they won’t notice not even any change. All parts of Telegram (private chats and groups) dedicated to messaging will remain ad-free.

However, Telegram will introduce its own platform to manage advertising, which will be usable in public channels, where now many owners of such channels already show advertisements, sometimes with third party systems and intrusive posts that appear to be regular messages. This will all change because Telegram’s native system will be user-friendly and respectful of privacy. This is partly a qui pro quo: if Telegram starts generating revenue through its advertising system, the owners of these channels will also benefit, or if, for example, there will be some sticker premium the artist who made them will obviously be rewarded

The current features of Telegram, which has always been free, will continue to remain so, and Telegram itself will always be free but new functions will also be added for “business teams o power users“, And some of these will be paid.

So many good intentions, with a single possible shadow on the horizon: the accounts will have to return. Durov’s intentions are good and legitimate, but Telegram really needs to start generating those hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and if the intended systems aren’t effective it could be a problem, on many levels. But we’ll talk about this again next year, hoping to bring you only good news.

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