
Telegram gets 3M new signups during Facebook apps’ outage - Ours90
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/14/telegram-gets-3m-new-signups-during-facebook-apps-outage/
======
mgw
I understand Telegram's appeal because of its high quality apps and big
feature list, but articles such as this one really should be more nuanced when
pushing Telegram's marketing message of "We have true privacy and unlimited
space for everyone.".

Their default mode is not end-to-end encrypted [1] and as such the product is
less private than WhatsApp. Even tech-savvy users in my social circles are not
aware of this and blindly recommend Telegram as the more private option.

When talking about privacy these articles should at least mention Signal. I
hope they will use their recent funding [2] to polish their apps and increase
the speed of innovation.

[1] [https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-
data](https://telegram.org/faq#q-so-how-do-you-encrypt-data) [2]
[https://signal.org/blog/signal-foundation/](https://signal.org/blog/signal-
foundation/)

~~~
newscracker
> When talking about privacy these articles should at least mention Signal. I
> hope they will use their recent funding [2] to polish their apps and
> increase the speed of innovation.

I keep repeating this often, but Signal is not a user friendly platform for
average users. It is good for ephemeral chats and conversations that one
wouldn't care about later. Signal actively blocks chats from being backed up
(and restored) on iOS. So if you switch to a new device, you'd have to start
afresh without any chat histories and also join all the groups once again. The
fact that this issue was opened a long time ago on GitHub and responded to by
saying it's a security issue to allow backups shows what audience Signal is
focusing on (investigative journalists, dissidents and activists who use
burner devices and don't need any traces of chats to linger around).

Telegram, on the other hand (even with the not-end-to-end-encrypted default),
makes for easy moves between devices (supporting chat syncing across OSes and
devices) and to newer devices, with every chat showing information shared as
links, photos, etc., and very easy to get back to. Of course, since the chats
are not stored encrypted on its servers, search is also blazingly fast.

One deficiency with Telegram is that the end-to-end encrypted chats ("secret
chats") are tied to phones and can't be initiated from other devices or seen
from other devices. Those also don't carry over to a new device. There is no
technical reason for this, because Wire (which in my opinion is a better
alternative to Signal and easier to sell others on) handles end-to-end
encryption with syncing across devices.

~~~
ardy42
> Signal actively blocks chats from being backed up (and restored) on iOS.

I don't think that's true. Signal's backups require you to copy a file from
your old phone to your new phone's storage. It's possible on Android to mount
your phone's filesystem on a PC. IIRC, _Apple_ is the one that doesn't make
that easy on iOS, not Signal.

~~~
newscracker
What I said (specifically about iOS) is true and has been so since 2015 (or
earlier).

See [1] and [2] that I linked in another comment here and check on backups
explicitly being denied on iOS. This has nothing to do with Apple, and
everything to do with the Signal team not willing to make it user friendly
(for this case).

[1]: [https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
iOS/wiki/FAQ](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/wiki/FAQ)

[2]: [https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
iOS/issues/905](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/905)

~~~
tivert
> See [1] and [2] that I linked in another comment here and check on backups
> explicitly being denied on iOS.

They apparently have an open issue for this (though it looks like it's locked
to prevent people from endlessly complaining in their bug tracker).

[https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-
iOS/issues/2542](https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-iOS/issues/2542)

It also sounds like they have a branch where they're working on this feature:

[https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/ios-backup-
kee...](https://whispersystems.discoursehosting.net/t/ios-backup-keeping-
message-history-when-switching-phones/1736/35)

> This has nothing to do with Apple, and everything to do with the Signal team
> not willing to make it user friendly (for this case).

I'd be interested to know the precise reason they have for not implementing
this. You seem to have a pretty negative opinion of Signal, but I doubt
they've avoided implementing backups on iOS just because they're "not willing
to make it user friendly" (which is _really_ uncharitable take, btw). Perhaps
there's some nuance to iOS that makes backups far more difficult to implement
than on Android while providing the same security guarantees.

~~~
newscracker
The reason given is “security”, or to copy paste from the link I have given:
“iTunes backups are disabled to prevent plaintext leakage to iCloud or
insecure systems.”

I have a negative opinion of Signal because they have not dealt with this for
years and have been stubborn on that point. Please read the comments on the
link I have given and also look at issues they have closed on the same topic.
Their responses on the issue tracker don’t look user friendly. So I go with
what I’ve seen (which is available for you to examine and make your own
inferences too).

For a very long time, I’ve wanted to recommend Signal to others (I still use
it, but not for anything that I’d want to save for longer). But this
particular issue, introduced and imposed by the Signal team, is a deal
breaker. Which average user would want to rejoin all groups or lose all chat
history because they bought a new iPhone? If this self-imposed issue is not an
example of being user unfriendly, then what is?

~~~
tivert
> I have a negative opinion of Signal because they have not dealt with this
> for years and have been stubborn on that point.

Why? It's their time and I doubt you're their boss.

> But this particular issue, introduced and imposed by the Signal team, is a
> deal breaker.

It seems like you just fundamentally disagree with their priorities, which is
kind of a poor reason for having a negative opinion of them. It seems like
they want to create the _maximally secure_ yet reasonably usable chat app, and
you want a _maximally convenient_ yet reasonably secure chat app.

IMHO, Signal's priorities are far more unique and innovative, and that's why
they have my support. Literally every other app out there decides to make the
opposite trade offs.

~~~
newscracker
I’m not their boss, but who says I can’t criticize it if it doesn’t meet my
and others’ needs? If you observe all the discussions here on HN, you’d see
that most of the criticisms and disagreements that people have with someone or
some company relates to priorities not matching. Signal is not getting some
special mistreatment here. In my other comments I have mentioned (that I have
been) focusing on selling Signal to the average user. That doesn’t work well
because of such issues (I have also listed other issues with Signal in some
other comments here).

If Signal wants to become more popular, then it should _also_ look at what
average users need right now (the deal breakers) when prioritizing
requirements and features. As I said in another comment, Signal seems focused
on investigative journalists, dissidents and activists. Nothing wrong with
that at all, but it reflects poorly on people who comment on HN recommending
that everybody should use Signal.

~~~
ardy42
> I’m not their boss, but who says I can’t criticize it if it doesn’t meet my
> and others’ needs?

Yeah, because doing that is kinda toxic. It's the kind of behavior that makes
open-source project maintainers burn out and quit their former labor-of-love,
because they're sick being dragged down by all of the negativity from the
internet peanut gallery.

This is especially true since it appears they may actually be addressing your
iOS backup concerns, just not with the urgency you demand.

> As I said in another comment, Signal seems focused on investigative
> journalists, dissidents and activists. Nothing wrong with that at all, but
> it reflects poorly on people who comment on HN recommending that everybody
> should use Signal.

No, it doesn't reflect poorly on them at all.

------
supernes
I cannot understand why people insist on hating Telegram for their choice of
tradeoff between convenience and privacy. People who care enough about the
subject should know when and whether to use it for their communications. For
everyone else, it's an outstanding alternative to Messenger/WhatsApp and
Viber.

Edit: I'd also like to add that maybe we need to make a distinction between
the notions of privacy and secrecy. Privacy as understood by the majority of
people is a broader concept than what more technically inclined people
associate with the matter. I believe that then Telegram's decisions and use
case can become clearer.

~~~
kuhhk
> I cannot understand why people insist on hating Telegram for their choice of
> tradeoff between convenience and privacy.

I recall the anger is not about any trade off. It is that they rolled their
own poor crypto instead of using battle-tested crypto. There’s no convenience
factor or trade off here, they just literally did the thing the textbooks tell
you not to do, and have ignored the industry’s calls to use strong crypto.

~~~
p2detar
> It is that they rolled their own poor crypto instead of using battle-tested
> crypto.

I come across this a lot about Telegram and while I do agree, I think there
have been no reports so far about hacks in Telegram's service, and it's online
since 2013 or so.

~~~
kuhhk
6 years is a short time in cryptography. That isn't battle-tested.

"Even worse, security doesn't provide immediate feedback. A dead patient on
the operating table tells the doctor that maybe he doesn't understand brain
surgery just because he read a book, but an insecure cryptosystem works just
fine. It's not until someone takes the time to break it that the engineer
might realize that he didn't do as good a job as he thought. Remember: Anyone
can design a security system that he himself cannot break. Even the experts
regularly get it wrong." \-- Bruce Schneier

Source: [https://www.schneier.com/crypto-
gram/archives/2009/0915.html](https://www.schneier.com/crypto-
gram/archives/2009/0915.html)

~~~
p2detar
Yep, I'm familiar with Schneier's comments. I still find the whole thing funny
though. For example, services like Viber seem to have 260 mil. active monthly
users [1] which is a tad more than Telegram's 200 mil. on monthly basis,
however, I don't hear people bashing Viber that much even though it practices
security through obscurity [2]. Hats off to Telegram for at least publishing
their stuff and I remain curious as to how it will all unfold in the future.

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viber#Market_share](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viber#Market_share)
[2] - [https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/viber-defends-new-end-
to-e...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/04/20/viber-defends-new-end-to-end-
encryption-protocol-against-criticism/)

~~~
r3bl
It's a simple problem of where the market is.

India, Russia, and Brazil isn't the target market for people like Schneier. If
you narrow the market to the US, Statista reports that Telegram has twice as
many users in the US as Viber.

I'm from one of those countries where Viber is hugely popular (by far more
popular than WhatsApp and Telegram), and I hate it with passion. Kind of like
Telegram, its end-to-end encryption was also home-made last time I've checked,
but at least it's turned on by default.

------
newscracker
Telegram is a fantastic app and platform in the IM/chat space. The feature
set, speed and pace of development are far ahead of any others I've seen.

The fact that its default chats are not end-to-end encrypted and are stored in
plaintext on its servers is a concern. Everyone who talks about this as a huge
deficiency should also consider that this applies to email too, unless one
always uses encryption (like GPG/PGP or S/MIME). Sharing personal photos and
such may have shifted from emails and websites to chat platforms, but email is
still a place where the most sensitive of information tends to be exchanged.
That said, the UX of end-to-end email encryption in a federated and widespread
way is not yet a solved problem (without kludges, like for example, hosting
the encrypted email on a site and sending the link across if the email is sent
to a user on another provider), whereas key end-to-end encryption on chat apps
is a (mostly/completely?) solved problem.

~~~
vog
_> The fact that its default chats are not end-to-end encrypted and are stored
in plaintext on its servers is a concern._

"Concern"? This is a deal-breaker.

 _> Everyone who talks about this as a huge deficiency should also consider
that this applies to email too, unless one always uses encryption (like
GPG/PGP or S/MIME)._

The contenders here are Signal and WhatsApp, not email.

Having better UX and safer defaults than email is nothing to be proud of - it
is the bare minimum.

~~~
eitland
> "Concern"? This is a deal-breaker.

Anyone who finds themselves using email disagrees in practice. Plain text on
the servers are no practical deal breaker to the vast majority of people, not
even the majority of HNers.

> The contenders here are Signal and WhatsApp, not email.

This is the problem:

Stop recommending WhatsApp and we are a little closer.

Many of us can agree that Signal is probably more secure, even after the
horrible bug they had in their desktop client not that long ago.

 _But WhatsApp is nothing but a metadata collection engine for Facebook._

I'm not too happy with the saying about not paying meaning you are the
product, but in this case it fits perfectly:

1\. Facebook buys WhatsApp, makes it free, promisese they can't combine it.

2\. Turns out Facebook is too greedy to even pretend it wants to keep its
promises, and goes on to update Terms Of Service, adding a default opt-in.

 _Can we stop recommending WhatsApp now?_

 _Signal exists critical stuff._

For everything else, use something that works: Telegram, email, whatever,
-even WhatsApp.

------
mourner
It's a fantastic service from an engineering perspective. Fast, lightweight,
reliable, simple, with low battery drain and data usage, and open source
clients. A real joy to use.

~~~
saagarjha
Telegram's clients are nominally open source.

~~~
ubercow13
What more could you want?

~~~
saagarjha
Clients that are actually open source, updated on time, and have source code
that actually builds?

------
WA
I guess nobody knows Threema (threema.ch) outside of Central Europe. The UI
isn't as perfect as Whatsapp's, but close enough.

I tried to use iMessage the other day and I'm extremely surprised that a
product that is used that broadly in the US is that shitty. Downsides around
sending voice messages (which I do frequently):

\- You must hold the stupid button to record

\- If you record and turn your phone, the recording button gets obviously
relocated away from your thumb and the entire message is just discarded. Gone.
How such a bug could escape Apple is beyond me.

\- There is no way to scroll through a voice message. I send and receive 10
minute messages occasionally and if you interrupt the listening, you have to
start all over again.

~~~
kitsunesoba
Anecdotally, iMessage’s voice feature doesn’t get much use. Everybody I know
uses it text only and opts for dictation over voice messages.

Personally I prefer text. Telegram’s voice message support is much better, but
without fail when someone sends me one I end up listening to it 2-3+ times to
make sure I heard/understood it correctly. Never have that problem with text.

~~~
OJFord
I think Chinese people do, at least that was my experience of peers at
university (in the UK) - many would wonder around either holding phone
perpendicular to face, or with an earphone wire microphone strapped around
their mouth having essentially asynchronous telephone conversations. Best of
both, in a way?

Maybe it's also about language - easier to speak Mandarin than type or draw it
on a touchscreen? I don't know.

~~~
Markoff
they are just lazy or too old, actually typing simplified Chinese it's faster
than English, amount of characters you have to type/swipe to deliver same
content it's much lower than with latin languages due to length of words and
primitive grammar (even more primitive than English and that's already
something compared to European languages with tons of grammatical cases and
forms for each word and multiple plurals and genders, heck Chinese doesn't
even have singular, if they would switch to pinyin they could conquer the
world)

------
nextstep
Please, please, please use Signal instead. And tell your friends!

Telegram has made very dubious privacy claims, but even if you trust the
company, Signal has a far superior user experience. Telegram’s private
messages are not enabled by default, and when you are using private messaging,
numerous other features are disabled defeating the point.

~~~
purerandomness
Telegram is used primarily as a replacement for Facebook Groups, not for one-
to-one communication.

Signal doesn't offer Groups, so it's not something people will switch to.
(Signal has Group Chats however, which is something completely different)

~~~
mourner
That's not true, at least not in areas where Telegram is prevalent (Eastern
Europe). Here, it's quickly becoming the default 1-1 messenger.

------
diego_moita
Telegram user here. For me, by far the best use case for it are the bots. I
live in Brazil and can't stand my relatives barfing bullshit about that
idiotic Bolsonaro on WhatsApp. A simple bot on Telegram is the perfect
antidote against political stupidity. Bye, bye WhatsApp...

Give me bots on Signal/WhatsApp and I'll begin paying attention. Before that,
no thanks.

~~~
Krasnol
> A simple bot on Telegram is the perfect antidote against political
> stupidity.

It's a perfect vehicle for political stupidity too.

Here in Germany Telegram has a history of being the preferred nest for all
kinds of fascist hate groups that have been banned on Facebook. Actually this
is the only times I've heard/read about Telegram in the media here.

~~~
karlmcguire
We should get Telegram to censor them too, that would definitely not make
things worse.

~~~
Krasnol
Nice derailing.

------
ar7hur
... or so says Durov, CEO of Telegram, without providing any way to fact-check
his affirmation.

I admire the PR stunt.

~~~
patrickxb
Also, the article doesn't mention how many users sign up in a regular 24 hour
period (say on Wednesday a week ago).

3M in 24h is a lot of sign ups regardless (if they had 200M users a year ago,
that's over a 1% jump in total number of users), but it would be interesting
to know how many more than usual that is.

------
rvanmil
When will HN learn that convenience beats security every single time? All
posts that mention Telegram get the same tiring comments about security and
they're all utterly pointless and preaching to the choir. Yes, we know there
are more secure messenger apps out there, thanks. But unless they offer at
least the same convenience as Telegram does, no one will use them except you
and some of your tech friends. If you want security and privacy to become
mainstream, simply make it a boring, invisible implementation detail of your
messenging platform which is superior in convenience.

~~~
botto
Keybase is very convenient, same features and is based on known standards and
has arguably as good a UX as telegram.

Why isn't that used more?

~~~
HHalvi
I hate the hassle of setting up Keybase on Mobile andDesktop so i have never
bothered about it till now.

~~~
vonseel
Hassle? It’s incredibly straightforward. Maybe 2 steps to login to an account
on iOS that already exists on desktop (preferences add devise, scan QR code).

------
bfuller
Telegram has become my social media mainstay. So much better than anything
else, but maybe I just got lucky with the groups I am in.

~~~
MildlySerious
I am in the same boat. I started using it around 4 years ago when the constant
degration of Skype hit a point where I could no longer treat it as my main
messenger. Since then, everyone I have regular contact with has become
available there, and I haven't looked back. At all. In the last two years it
has also become the main hub for a lot of crypto communities, which was very
fortunate for me I guess.

I don't use it for privacy, as much as I would like that to be a more
prominent feature. It is my Facebook, and I hope to move to a more private
platform eventually, but until then the features, usability, unobtrusiveness
and solid clients on all my devices are the reason I'm staying.

------
rygxqpbsngav
I think Signal is a good alternate to Whatsapp. I like the voice quality of
Signal and it's privacy features.

I used Telegram too and I think its a good alternate to FB. Always stable and
Has some great public and private channels. And doesn't drain battery like FB
messenger does.

------
chewz
I am recommending Wire.

[https://wire.com/en/](https://wire.com/en/)

[https://wire.com/en/about/](https://wire.com/en/about/)

[https://wire.com/en/security/](https://wire.com/en/security/)

~~~
Sendotsh
Wire is definitely my favourite of the secure IMs as far as UI/UX. It's also
the one I've had most luck with when referring non-tech family and friends.
They didn't like Signal or Riot (for a variety of reasons) but are happy to
use Wire.

~~~
tome
It looks like you have to pay for Wire. Is that right?

~~~
nitrohorse
Not for Wire “Personal” ([https://wire.com/en/products/personal-secure-
messenger](https://wire.com/en/products/personal-secure-messenger)).

------
paulie_a
The only reason I saw fb messenger as popular was because fb was. the chat
heads are dumb ( Google is trying to copy that for some reason), it tried to
replace basic features of a phone, it randomly dialed people ( in HD!). In
2019, is it really that difficult to design an app, list of contacts, list
conversation, timed delete etc in a normal looking ux. The state of messenging
apps is terrible. On sure Google will release a new one soon though

------
ergocoder
Honest question here.

Isn't Telegram inherently unsafe/unsecure because all of its operations are in
Russia?

When a Russian authority knocks on their doors, they would be forced to
answer.

It's true that US would do the same thing. But I'd prefer US doing it over
Russia or China doing it. Because, at least, transparency and justice system
in US is a lot better than ones in Russia and China.

~~~
alehul
Telegram moved out of Russia and has since been banned in the country.

That aside, as an American, I feel like maybe there's some advantage to it
being Russia rather than the US, as it's not your own country or an ally.
Probably not enough of a reason to prefer Russia, but there is something to
think about there. :)

~~~
ergocoder
Ha, I see. It seems the founder already left Russia and can't go back.

------
vog
I find it quite telling that a short outage does more damage to Facebook than
any data breaches and mishandling of user data.

------
botto
Telegram is scary and questionable. Inventing your own encryption is never the
answer and reeks of horrible understanding of security, at this stage there is
no reason they should not adopt a standard of communication like Signal
protocol.

Signal app itself is ok, it's a little....annoying as it requires a phone
number and the UX needs some love.

Keybase is great, It has ways of verifying you across multiple services and
has end-to-end encryption using PGP. Also offers file storage.

~~~
Tomte
Signal/RedPhone did invent its own crypto (the ratchet), didn't they?

~~~
tivert
> Signal/RedPhone did invent its own crypto (the ratchet), didn't they?

IIRC, they didn't invent any crypto _primitives_ (e.g. cyphers).

~~~
Tomte
Sure, but the primitives are pretty boring, anyway. Few people try to invent
those.

Many more try to invent new constructions on top of the primitives. That's
where things go wrong, in practice.

(I fully trust in OWS here, but "don't invent crypto" is an unsuitable
argument in a Signal-vs-Telegram discussion)

~~~
tivert
> Many more try to invent new constructions on top of the primitives. That's
> where things go wrong, in practice.

Things go wrong _er_ when non-cryptographers try to invent their own
primitives, and that's what the saying "don't invent your own crypto" was
invented to warn against.

------
fouc
Telegram is a great alternative to iMessage because it has great mobile &
desktop clients.

~~~
saagarjha
Personally, I find iMessage's clients to be far superior to Telegram's
offerings. They're more reliable, lightweight, and just work better and look
nicer overall.

~~~
kitsunesoba
I prefer iMessage for folks with Apple stuff, but for those who don’t I fall
back on Telegram.

It’ll never happen but I’d be ecstatic if Apple released iMessage for other
platforms.

------
dkrich
Serious question as someone who has never used Telegram and don't know anyone
who uses it: what's the plan for sustainability from a financial perspective?

Running the infrastructure for a scalable secure and reliable service like
this for hundreds of millions of users has to be extremely expensive. Yet on
Telegram's website it says that it will be free forever and will never sell
advertisements or charge subscription fees. So is it donations?

~~~
ubercow13
Yes, it is a donation from a rich founder. It says clearly on their website:

>Q: How are you going to make money out of this?

>We believe in fast and secure messaging that is also 100% free.

>Pavel Durov, who shares our vision, supplied Telegram with a generous
donation, so we have quite enough money for the time being. If Telegram runs
out, we will introduce non-essential paid options to support the
infrastructure and finance developer salaries. But making profits will never
be an end-goal for Telegram.

~~~
dkrich
Ah, thanks. So the answer is that it's not sustainable. Got it.

~~~
jonlucc
Not necessarily. Would you say that a museum or university isn't sustainable
because its revenue from goods and services is less money than it spends? If
they have an endowment or similar vehicle set up, they can use interest to pay
salaries, and other expenses. That's the kind of thing that could be enabled
by a single large donation and should be considered sustainable despite a lack
of other recurring revenue.

~~~
Krasnol
> Would you say that a museum or university isn't sustainable because its
> revenue from goods and services is less money than it spends?

Yes?

That's why it's being usually run by tax money. A regular flow of funds.
Something you can plan and work with.

~~~
alehul
If they had a lump sum donation of $100M, they could probably safely expect a
return of 5% per year on average (many years could be worse).

As long as their costs are less than $5M per year, they can effectively run
forever, barring any long-lasting financial depressions (the likes of which
we've never seen), or severe financial mismanagement.

This is how many museums and universities operate, and what the above
commenter was referring to. :)

~~~
dkrich
Okay but museums and universities also rely heavily on ongoing donations. A 5%
annual yield is far from a guarantee. Not to mention that running a tech
company is very different than running a museum or local symphony. A tech
company has to attract and retain top talent that is very expensive and costs
scale with adoption.

------
lykr0n
Telegram is great because, for me, for two reasons:

1\. Extremely well written mobile and desktop apps. Great performance and low
resource usage. 2\. Group functionality.

It's not fully secure, but there are a bunch of thriving communities on there
that are great. Local groups, coding groups, IT groups, etc. Also- if you're
part of the furry community it is the de-facto communication platform.

~~~
vonseel
> furry community it is the de-facto communication platform.

Interesting fact, haha.

~~~
lykr0n
ProTip. If you ever see a furry sticker, don't open the pack. There is a 50%
chance that they get NSFW

------
franky47
Telegram got some bad press in France after it was revealed that some
terrorist groups used it to coordinate their attacks [1].

Now most non-tech people I talk to about alternative messaging platforms know
it as "The terrorist messaging app".

[1] [https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/nouveau-
monde/teleg...](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/nouveau-
monde/telegram-l-appli-des-terroristes_1790333.html) (French)

~~~
diego_moita
And WhatsApp was used to promote and coordinate the genocide or the Rohinga
people in Burma, spread fake news that helped elect the retarded proto-fascist
Bolsonaro in Brazil, spread hate against gays in Eastern Africa,...

I'm sure you also know how the Putin's friends used Facebook to help elect the
Pussy-Graber in Chief in the US or give an hand to Brexit supporters.

Maybe the problem is not the tool but how people use it?

------
zkar
Most of the conversation here is pros/cons of Signal vs. Telegram. The bigger
elephant in the room is whatsapp. Instead of telegram/signal trying to one up
each other, try to be better than whatsapp. Even then, you will need to get to
a critical mass usage to be useful which whatpass has already accomplished.

------
glitcher
The interesting takeaway for me is how unpredictable and sudden a large shift
away from a popular platform can be. This incident certainly isn't a big
tipping point for fb, but it does serve as a good reminder of how the network
effect does not necessarily lock a dominant player in permanently.

------
godot
I'm not advocating for any of Telegram, Signal, or any of FB's suite of apps,
just noting an observation from someone at my age group.

Most/all of my non-tech-savvy friends and relatives wouldn't even have heard
of Telegram or Signal or any other messaging apps. My tech-savvy friends tend
to be busy with their lives (most of my friends are 30+ and have family and
kids to take care of), and when FB is down for 24 hours they tend to just not
use FB or Whatsapp and "wait it out"; it's not like they have to message
anyone while at work.

I guess the 3M signups are mostly teeangers and young adults? I'm really not
sure how anyone 30+ with a family really care enough about messaging friends
on an app to switch apps (by installing a new one even!) when their usual one
is down for a day. Most probably fall back to SMS even if some are on paid per
message plans.

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czei002
Unfortunately Telegram nor Signal supports federation. I find it bit funny
that people move from one wallet garden to the next one 8-)

A good alternative is Riot. The recent Riot update actually makes it a pretty
decent messenger!

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AtHeartEngineer
Telegram is alright, but I still prefer signal.

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colordrops
Why aren't discord and slack eating up this space? They seem to be much more
feature filled than Telegram.

~~~
martin_a
Slack would probably just kill your phone instantaneous, because it found new
memory to consume.

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Bombthecat
Wow, this just shows how fragile the connection between users and apps are
now...

Ome Minute down and you lose 1M users..

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yes_man
Telegram's end goal is to create value for shareholders. Eventually they will
profit from user privacy violations. Not to parrot other comments, but we
should all use Signal. Its' existence isn't based on investment dollars that
expect returns in more dollars.

~~~
newscracker
> Not to parrot other comments, but we should all use Signal. Its' existence
> isn't based on investment dollars that expect returns in more dollars.

Your argument doesn't make much sense on the Signal side either. How long will
the $50 million that the Signal Foundation has really last for? And what
happens after that runs out?

~~~
yes_man
What happens to Wikipedia every time the end of their runway is approaching?
At least we can hope for a similar solution to appear for messaging.

~~~
newscracker
Why can’t that happen for Telegram and happen only for Signal? Who can predict
if Telegram would do under some “foundation” and get funded that way soon? My
point is that singling out Telegram doesn’t make sense in this context.

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vonseel
I have no clue why anyone would choose Telegram over Signal or Keybase.
Marketing.

~~~
ubercow13
Better apps and more reliable service, maybe

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secfirstmd
Really wish Signal would get the bounce that occurs when this stuff happens
instead.

~~~
r721
Telegram has "channels" though which are similar to Facebook pages (but with
no comments/likes).

"Channels are a tool for broadcasting public messages to large audiences. In
fact, channels can have an unlimited number of members. When you post in a
channel, the message is signed with the channel's name and not yours. You can
appoint additional administrators to help you manage the channel. New members
can see the entire message history in a channel once they join."

[https://telegram.org/faq_channels](https://telegram.org/faq_channels)

~~~
avaika
"Likes" are possible if you create channel messages via bots. Well, it's a
kind of enhanced like. It's called reaction, you can predefine one or several
smiles / text entries and channel readers can vote for it under the post. Some
bots have convenient option to schedule posts or create self-destroyed
messages and lots of other functions.

Comments are also possible via external bots. The discussion isn't really
inside telegram though.

But navigation in channel is pain. Especially if you want to jump into the
beginning where was no pinned message and channel has long history.

And when you subscribe for many channels it becomes a nightmare to segregate
channels and users. They need to improve that experience.

