In two days it will be exactly 10 years since I registered in the “cart”. Considering that the first mass version of this messenger appeared in August 2013, we can say that I have seen the entire development path of this brainchild of Pavel Durov to the present day. Over the years, Telegram gradually replaced ICQ in my smartphone, then WhatsApp, then there were attempts to evaluate Viber, but I don’t even remember how many pass-through messengers there were.
Compared to all of them, Telegram offered a laconic interface, the ability to install the client on any device with any operating system, transfer files and that’s it. Well, audio calls are also a good feature. This set was enough to abandon all other, less convenient analogues, and even encourage others to correspond only in the “cart”.
And now it’s 2023, and I’m spending my time figuring out how to get Telegram to show me previously hidden stories again. At the same time, I read notifications that a live broadcast has started in one channel, a drawing for premium subscriptions in another, and in a third…
Okay, stop. Why did the “cart” from a convenient messenger, whose main function is TEXT MESSAGING, turn into a cross between a social network, YouTube, TikTok and Insta (which is banned in Russia)?
Don’t mix everything in one application
Viber interface. Blood from the eyes.
Several years ago, when Viber appeared on my iPhone, I remember my feelings from using this messenger: irritation.
After the laconic interface of the “cart” and even “Whatsapp”, Viber looked like a madhouse: advertising, some channels, animated stickers, emojis and gifs, inconvenient navigation through chats, and most importantly – a constant avalanche of spam in all possible forms, from messages to calls within the application.
I remember that it was enough for me for a day. Then I turned off all notifications from Viber and did not log into it for about a month. Then I went in and was horrified by the amount of unread spam that had accumulated, among which it was completely impossible to find important messages.
And then I got angry because I couldn’t find out what I hadn’t looked at in the settings so that the application icon on the iPhone desktop stubbornly showed some kind of unread notification.
Even if you don’t have any unread messages, notifications on the icon will still appear. A new sticker pack just came out, and you should know about it.
With a light heart, I deleted and forgot forever about this monster, which Frankenstein himself would envy.
Yes, the owners of Viber, the Japanese company Rakuten, have relied on the “all-in-one” principle, when the user’s attention is not limited only to text correspondence with specific people. But for me personally, this was inconvenient, because there is YouTube and TikTok for watching videos, and there is a social network for photos and short videos.
I have always believed and still believe that you need a messenger to write or speak a message to the recipient and receive a response from him in the same format as soon as possible. All.
The main problem with Viber was that its capabilities distracted me from why I opened it in the first place. This is why we never managed to become friends.
And now exactly the same thing is happening with Telegram. I log in for the specific purpose of messaging, but I spend a lot more time there, looking at unread messages from various channels and browsing through story circles.
Yes, sometimes it turns out to be a useful activity and I learn something new. But mostly it’s just information noise that I could easily do without.
You can unsubscribe from all channels, prohibit sending yourself audio messages and video circles. But there’s still no escape from the flow of content – friends from your contact list will continue to repost memes, pictures and other garbage, because they don’t unfollow anyone.
Why Telegram stopped being a messenger and turned into a monster
From the point of view of developing their project and retaining the audience in it, the creators and developers of the “cart” are doing everything just fine. Because a user simply cannot just log in, read a message from a person and immediately exit. Something will definitely distract his attention.
You watch an endless feed of news and stories, everything is in a fog, you come to your senses in half an hour. You let people who run telegram channels earn money, raised the rating of the application itself among popular messengers, but lost your time. What did you want to write? And to whom? Oh, never mind, I already forgot.
Channels don’t distract attention, stories do.
It’s a shame that at the same time Telegram is still the most convenient client for exchanging messages and files, so I don’t want to give it up and return to the same WhatsApp. And study some less popular analogue that is used three chalicesit makes no sense.
Anyway, no one will download and register in an incomprehensible messenger just to send a few messages. There is a cart for this.
Judging by its popularity, Telegram engineers managed to implement the “all-in-one” format in such a way that the audience likes it. But here I am, part of this same audience, and I want to say openly that no, dear Pasha Durov, I personally don’t like this at all. I would have preferred the old cart functionality from 2016, when the limit of innovation was the ability to edit messages.
At that time, no one asked to add tons of functions, which today you not only need to be able to understand, but they need to be studied for a long time and carefully, reading guides and training materials.
Sorry, it came out
I have been sitting in the “cart” for 10 years. I can express my dissatisfaction.
It is impossible to turn back time, just as it is impossible to abandon the development of Telegram. You can try to limit yourself as much as possible from the flow of information garbage, but stopping using the “cart” is simply unrealistic.
Sometimes I remember the best messenger, which was called QiP (oldies here?). It had a dialog box, a text input field and an emoji selection icon. And that’s all, this was enough to be a cool messaging app.
Yes, I myself record voices and circles in the “cart”, and often send files. I consider this a normal extension of functionality. But everything else, including quotes, stories, gifs, advertising for non-premium users, the very idea of premium subscriptions and other bells and whistles – personally, I would be fine in Telegram without all this.
Did you ask for the wall back in 2010? Revenge for all those memes, in the form of turning the “cart” into one big wall with a bunch of information, pictures and inscriptions, turned out to be really scary.
Do you agree? Let’s check:
Are you satisfied with the way Telegram is developing?
All functions are fire Didn’t understand the innovations I don’t care, I communicate on WhatsApp I don’t like to correspond, it’s better to call I haven’t updated the cart client since 2015
42% All functions fire
39% Didn’t understand innovations
12% I don’t care, I communicate on WhatsApp
2% I don’t like texting, it’s better to call
5% I have not updated the cart client since 2015
602 voted
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iPhones.ru In two days it will be exactly 10 years since I registered in the “cart”. Considering that the first mass version of this messenger appeared in August 2013, we can say that I have seen the entire development path of this brainchild of Pavel Durov to the present day. Over the years, Telegram gradually replaced ICQ in my smartphone, then WhatsApp, then there were attempts to evaluate…
Mikk Sid
@mickmaster
I write about everything that is interesting and educational – gadgets, events, reports. I am interested in playing the drums and am an experienced music lover.
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