I really hope it helps them build a decent app, but I doubt it. In Ukraine, there's a huge problem of Telegram being so feature-rich compared to WhatsApp that it's impossible to convince people to do the switch, even under the national security threat.
Privacy is a completely valid criticism, but it feels that posters at HN often forget that Telegram was made by geeks in the first place. It was first to give an easy way to send a hi-quality photo instead of a blurry JPEG, the first to let you send 4-5 GB files to yourf friend without any extra effort, which was unbelievable for me as someone who grew up with games played off audio records. And it used to be pretty Wild West - not in regards to porn as critics would say - why would a grown up person search for porn in a social media app - but rather in temporarily standing up for values of free software and media (also something I didn’t experience since early 90s).
I think one point not raised here is that Telegram is an attempt to create a global Asian style messenger with quick, sleek and maybe too animated (to my taste) design and vibrant ecosystem.
Whatsapp cannot be fast - otherwise Grandmas will not be using it, so Meta always has to compromise, while Telegram can just adapt WeChat/Line features for years with WA limping behind.
Signal is cool for people that consider privacy paramount. If I get it right, they are also on a mission of creating safe communication for the most vulnerable. They are just different; I could never make myself start using TikTok, and can completely relate to someone saying Signal has just the right amount of features one needs.
I shifted to Telegram a few years ago, and it was such a rich experience for me. Off the top of my head:
- much much better performance
- a good desktop client
- open source message clients
- scheduling messages
- better search
- many small gestures/UX features that feel thoughtfully implemented
- better channels
- message threads
- chat folders
- very easily programmable & deployable bots for moderation or implementation into your work flow
- a lot of customisable settings
Telegram is so much further in performance and feature than it's counterparts it's laughable. Almost all of the new features in Whatsapp/Signal were first implemented in Telegram.
Some of them, as you said, are feasible because of the non-e2ee chats, but a lot of them are just plain universal.
Nope, not at all. Not only are most of these features unavailable, getting anything "business-related" done (apart from the template they offer you) is a huge pain.
It's discord-level feature-rich, e.g. it has "forums/topics", "channels" (which WhatsApp added poorly), much more developed sticker/reactions functionality, "round videos" and other catchy, viral features, at the same time doesn't feel like heavy discord. I've switched off long time ago due to security concerns, but now that I'm using WhatsApp/Signal -- they're just too basic.
I'm a much heavier Signal user than WhatsApp but for broader audience it not even serious to consider. Too slow/laggish, lacks features (at some point it ate 40GB of my phone space -- with no good UI to clean it up), crashes etc. Not ready for this kind of scenario, unfortunately.
That's funny because one of the reasons I used Telegram originally was the encryption of messages and open sourcedness. Also Whatsapp use to require your phone to be on and with signal to receive messages on the web app.
Really WhatsApp is not a national security threat? Ukraine is basically a vassal state of the US at this point, I would think it would be best to depend less of them.
