Telegram Premium subscription is reportedly in the works; could offer more stickers and reactions
Telegram Messenger is working on a paid subscription called Telegram Premium. Rumors suggest that it will offer some exclusive stickers and reactions that subscribers may use.
The service boasts over 500 million monthly active users, and has inevitably evolved into a large social media platform. Many brands have their own channels and make announcements via Telegram. It has even become the primary mode of communication for many refugees in the recent war. The company has never charged users anything for the services it provides.
In late 2020, Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram, revealed that the instant messaging/VOIP service's required a few hundred million dollars a year in order to maintain its servers and cover the expenses for its development. The company began exploring ways to monetize the service without resorting to selling user data to companies.
Naturally, this raised some eyebrows, with regard to privacy concerns. A few months later, in February 2021, Durov clarified that Telegram wanted to sell ads to companies, without targeting users, akin to DuckDuckGo's privacy-friendly method. While chats themselves would remain ad-free, Telegram Channels would be allowed to monetize ads. He had also said that users would be allowed to opt of the ads.
This was when he first hinted about donations or subscriptions. A month later, Telegram confirmed that it had raised $1 Billion in bonds from some investors around the World. Telegram's recent app update brought support for creating bots with JavaScript. Companies can use these tools instead of a website, and have their storefront in the app, and users will be able to pay for the products directly.
What is Telegram Premium?
Now, an unofficial channel named Telegram Beta (spotted by Android Police), has revealed that the Telegram Premium Subscription will unlock some exclusive stickers and reactions that the user can access. This is not unusual, Discord has a similar premium subscription called Nitro that offers some additional features for users, but the core experience remains free for all users.
So in that sense, Telegram Premium sounds like a perfectly reasonable option to me, especially if it will help support the service. Don't like the extra stickers or reactions, don't pay for them. The channel showed off a screen capture featuring the Premium Subscription in the iOS app.
Telegram Avatar Creator
On a side note, some users have discovered the existence of an avatar creator in the Telegram app for macOS. It will allow users to personalize their Display Picture using emojis and gradient colors. It is unclear whether this could be a feature that is exclusive to Telegram's Premium Subscription.
Durov had previously said that Telegram's free features will always remain free, so as long as the premium subscription is completely optional, there shouldn't be a problem with the free tier. If the company decides to lock away currently-free features like calls, video calls, etc., behind a paywall, that could cause an exodus of users who would switch to alternative services.
I've been using Telegram since 2014 to chat with my friends, family, colleagues. It's great for making calls, sharing files, videos, and photos. All of these are important to me, that's why, I wouldn't mind throwing a few bucks in the service's way to support it.
What do you think about Telegram Premium? Would you pay for the extra stickers and reactions?
Uhh, this has already been possible – I am not sure how but remember my brother telling me about it. I’m not a whatsapp user so not sure of the specifics, but something about sending the image as a file and somehow bypassing the default compression settings that are applied to inbound photos.
He has also used this to share movies to whatsapp groups, and files 1Gb+.
Like I said, I never used whatsapp, but I know 100% this isn’t a “brand new feature”, my brother literally showed me him doing it, like… 5 months ago?
Martin, what happened to those: 12 Comments (https://www.ghacks.net/chatgpt-gets-schooled-by-princeton-university/#comments). Is there a specific justifiable reason why they were deleted?
Hmm, it looks like the gHacks website database is faulty, and not populating threads with their relevant cosponsoring posts.
The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk that it’s about to be deleted from my ‘daily reads’.
It’s really like “Press Release as re-written by some d*ck for clicks…poorly.” And the subjects are laughable. Can’t wait for “How to search for files on Windows”.
> The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk…
Sadly, I have to agree.
Only Martin and Ashwin are worth subscribing to.
Especially Emre Çitak and Shaun are the worst ones.
If ghacks.net intended “Clickbait”, it would mark the end of Ghacks Technology News.
Ghacks doesn’t need crappy clickbaits. Clearly separate articles from newer authors (perhaps AIs and external sales person or external advertising man) as just “Advertisements”!
We, the subscribers of Ghacks, urge Martin to make a decision.
because nevermore wants to “monetize” on every aspect of human life…
“Threads” is like the Walmart of Social Media.
How hard can it be to clone a twitter version of that as well? They’re slow.
Yes, why not mention how large the HD files can be?
Why, not mention what version of WhatsApp is needed?
These omissions make the article feel so bare. If not complete.
Sorry posted on the wrong page.
such a long article for such a simple matter. Worthless article ! waste of time
I already do this by attaching them via the ‘Document’ option.
I don’t know what’s going on here at Ghacks but it’s obvious that something is broken, comments are being mixed whatever the article, I am unable to find some of my later posts neither. :S
Quoting the article,
“As users gain popularity, the value of their tokens may increase, allowing investors to reap rewards.”
Besides, beyond the thrill and privacy risks or not, the point is to know how you gain popularity, be it on social sites as everywhere in life. Is it by being authentic, by remaining faithful to ourselves or is it to have this particular skill which is to understand what a majority likes, just like politicians, those who’d deny to the maximum extent compatible with their ideological partnership, in order to grab as many of the voters they can?
I see the very concept of this Friend.tech as unhealthy, propagating what is already an increasing flaw : the quest for fame. I won’t be the only one to count himself out, definitely.
@John G. is right : my comment was posted on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/23/what-is-friend-tech/] and it appears there but as well here at [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/08/how-to-follow-everyone-on-threads/]
This has been lasting for several days. Fix it or at least provide some explanations if you don’t mind.
> Google Chrome is following in Safari’s footsteps by introducing a new feature that allows users to move the Chrome address bar to the bottom of the screen, enhancing user accessibility and interaction.
Firefox did this long before Safari.
Basically they’ll do anything except fair royalties.