[HN Gopher] Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined duri...
___________________________________________________________________
Telegram founder says over 70M new users joined during Facebook
outage
Author : DocFeind
Score : 274 points
Date : 2021-10-05 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| don-code wrote:
| I'm actually quite thrilled that end users found a way to
| communicate in spite of "the everyday solution" being down. That
| gives me some hope that smaller vendors do stand a chance against
| incumbents, even in Facebook's space.
| gleenn wrote:
| Well, not sure how much smaller vendors have a chance when it
| takes a historic amount of downtime for this to happen.
| laurent92 wrote:
| The chance is a window of 2 to 24 hours every decade, but
| you're not sure it will happen... After that, customers go
| back to the leader.
| AdamHominem wrote:
| I'm not particularly thrilled, given Telegram is based in the
| United Arab Emirates, its client-server encryption is almost
| purposefully garbage (they basically rolled their own TLS, and
| predictably researchers keep finding vulnerabilities in
| "MTProto"), they don't enable e2ee chats by default, and they
| don't e2ee group chats _at all._
|
| Do. Not. Use. Telegram.
| fluential wrote:
| Telegram is miles ahead in terms of scalability and features
| that makes it fun to use and work with their API. Kudos to
| the engineering team for creating such a great product.
| Imagine you can have groups up to 200 000 people, post files
| up to 2GB, have options to share your screen with unlimited
| amount of users - both desktop and mobile. Its really good.
| Yes if you need secrecy you may look elsewhere.
| otachack wrote:
| Don't use it for e2e, then? There are plenty other solutions
| for incredibly sensitive chats (Signal, Tox, etc)
|
| I think Telegram is a good trade off for group chats,
| personally. It's feature rich compared to others.
| tasogare wrote:
| Signal is asking phone number to use, I don't see how this
| is good for sensitive communication (since metadata alone
| are often very informative).
| 14u2c wrote:
| Exactly. I have found the phone number requirement
| idiotic from day one. I recognize the decision was made
| as a trade off between usability and security (enabling
| discovering friends via phone etc), but they seem
| unwilling to admit that this does compromise security.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I've thought about a phone-numberless messaging app, but
| then it'd be full of spammers.
| AegirLeet wrote:
| Any messaging app that allows users to communicate without
| E2EE is actively harmful.
| prirai wrote:
| That was the MTProto. The newer one is MTProto 2.0 but they
| are still on the older method. Also they have servers
| distributed across regions so there's no single point of
| failure. Perhaps they are considering e2e for smaller groups.
| jcelerier wrote:
| new account posting fearmongers on telegram ? how common. i
| wonder who's paying you.
|
| Telegram was good enough for people to use during actual
| protests in authoritarian regimes (Iran:
| https://dayan.org/content/demonstrations-islamic-republic-
| te... and Belarus: https://dayan.org/content/demonstrations-
| islamic-republic-te...).
|
| Meanwhile Signal adds some bullshit cryptocoin to their app,
| no thank you.
| 0x000000001 wrote:
| You're exaggerating the state of MTProto 2.0. They haven't
| rolled their own with this release.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Same as Discord, Teams, or Slack. If you do not want to chat
| sensible messages just use Matrix.
| grishka wrote:
| Any sources about any _real_ vulnerabilities in MTProto?
| prirai wrote:
| Mtproto did have. Mtproto 2.0 hasnhasn't seen such
| vulnerability. Reporters are still on the older method as
| that's what creates an effective login.
| BTCOG wrote:
| Post some links with any evidence that any researchers have
| found vulnerabilities in MTProto?
| holler wrote:
| 99.999% of people simply don't care about e2e, and even if
| they may have some concern about privacy (most don't),
| they'll prioritize a top-notch UI that let's them talk with
| friends and family over anything else.
|
| For the remaining people who are concerned about privacy
| there are plenty of options.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Handwavy rants about shoddy cryptography tend to be just
| that, handwavy. Repeating that Telegram does not enable end-
| to-end encryption by default does not make it more of a
| reason not to use Telegram. Here's what you can do to live
| comfortably on the net, having conversations with the world
| and its dog while _still_ being able to plot the overthrow of
| the government without inviting prying eyes: use Telegram for
| the former, use your private XMPP server with OMEMO for the
| latter. There, done, problem solved. No need for angry
| righteous rants about MTProto or the Emirates - and why
| exactly would that be the reason not to use Telegram by the
| way, would it have been less of an issue had they been
| located in Jakarta or Ouagadougou or Silly Valley - and all
| the bragging rights of using trusted cryptography for your
| local knitting club meetings where you plan to overthrow the
| government.
|
| Source: this is what I do, except for the knitting. Telegram
| for talking to the family, XMPP standby on the server-under-
| the-stairs for when the going gets tough, with Conversation
| (which supports OMEMO) installed on target devices.
| i_like_apis wrote:
| Even luckier, their system handled the load apparently. Hopefully
| their eng team is proud of it.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| There were definitely some issues some time after noon PST
| TallonRain wrote:
| Not really, plenty of users were unable to connect for some
| time. Just about my whole friend group and I myself were unable
| to use Telegram for about an hour or so around the peak of the
| surge.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Other than the 1:30 hour downtime that happened to a lot of old
| accounts.
|
| I actually think it's genius if they throttled old accounts
| just to let new people see how good telegram is.
| znpy wrote:
| On my phone i only had problems with media, text worked okay.
|
| On my laptop instead it was slow until I enabled traffic over
| ipv6, then it went mostly okay.
| toby- wrote:
| Source re 'old accounts'?
|
| I have an account as old as you can get, and had no problems,
| so I'd be interested in proof of a disproportionate impact on
| older accounts.
| throwawaybutwhy wrote:
| What downtime? There were rumors of degraded video chat
| capacity, which is a nuisance but not a catastrophe.
| stephencoyner wrote:
| Notifications didn't work until about 5PM PDT for me
| dorchadas wrote:
| It didn't work on mobile for me in Ireland for about an
| hour or so -- couldn't get a call or messages out on WiFi
| or data, but it worked perfectly fine on my laptop.
| idsout wrote:
| I also had minor issues for an hour or so. Messages not
| sending or loading for example.
| manquer wrote:
| A lot of could also be related to down graded DNS
| resolver performance due to DDoSing by FB clients.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Nah I have 3 telegram accounts. Two were fine. One was
| dead. Specifically the one that I had signed up with in
| 2013
| executive wrote:
| Sending videos was extremely slow/timing out for ~1 hour,
| ~24h ago
| pdimitar wrote:
| I was sending a few short videos to several contacts
| (during the FB outage) and the upload speed was something
| like 20KB/s, whereas normally 2MB are uploaded before I
| blink.
|
| My account is from 2016, if not 2015 even.
| BTCOG wrote:
| Same. No issues.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| I have an old account but images did not load correctly.
| Seems the experience is not the same on other countries.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Just mainly me and two other people.
|
| Specifically happened to US users.
| AntwaneB wrote:
| I don't believe it for a second.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Why not? Six months ago they were already celebrating half a
| billion users.
|
| People don't realize how big Telegram already is.
| advpetc wrote:
| Link: https://t.me/durov/170
| sairahul82 wrote:
| My problem with telegram is, 60% of my friends joined when
| whatsapp changed terms. After that I got no messages. Essentially
| most of them are dormant. It would be great to find out the
| percentage of active users in Telegram vs Whatsapp.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| I think this says more about the significant amount of control
| Facebook has with its messaging platforms and the implications of
| them losing that control for even a few hours, rather than who
| happens to benefit when Facebook's users are forced to find
| alternatives. What happens to Facebook can now have ramifications
| for the entire Web.
|
| It's gotten to the point where Facebook's userbase can act as a
| massive DDoS network not out of malice, as what the term usually
| implies, but because of the sheer number of people in the
| billions who willingly chose to use Facebook.
| farmerstan wrote:
| Is telegram better than signal? I vaguely remember hearing about
| Telegram having nefarious roots so I never investigated further.
| xerxex wrote:
| I swore off whatsapp years ago and never going back! And my uncle
| was one of them..
| LibertyBeta wrote:
| Wonder what the retention and falloff rates will be.
| hesammelvil wrote:
| That can explain their slowness yesterday!
| bilal4hmed wrote:
| How many are left after whatsapp returned ?
|
| The same thing happen when Signal took off, followed by 3 days of
| outage that to date has had no explanation. All those people
| joined and promptly returned to WhatsApp
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| From my experience, many friends in Iran strongly prefer
| Telegram even though it is blocked there are WhatsApp
| (inexplicably, since they are nearly the same service) isn't.
| So there does seem to be some brand loyalty in the chat market
| besides for convenience.
|
| I suspect in general their losses were far greater in chat than
| in Instagram. Most students in the US use both Insta and Snap
| already and just have some overlapping and some different
| content on each, so I don't think one being down for a day will
| seriously bug anyone enough to stop using it.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Telegram offers the absolute best user experience IMHO.
|
| I would love to use Signal, but I can't really stand it.
| vinay427 wrote:
| Are they competitors? As far as I can tell, Telegram
| focuses on non-E2EE messaging and is more of an alternative
| to Facebook Messenger, Google Talk, etc. for non-private
| messaging.
|
| That's fine, but its support for E2EE is incredibly limited
| compared to Signal (or even WhatsApp), which includes
| multi-device support, a fairly-functional encrypted backup
| method especially in the case of Signal, etc.
| prirai wrote:
| Multi device yes. The unlimited member functionality and
| seemless sync without having the phone turned on are the
| biggest pros. Also, in e2e the contents aren't revealed
| in notifications.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Usually i find Telegram side by side with Discord for
| communities groups.
| trenchgun wrote:
| The difference is that Telegram has better UX than Signal.
| Actually Telegram has even better UX than WhatsApp.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _The same thing happen when Signal took off, followed by 3
| days of outage that to date has had no explanation._
|
| Wasn't it that Signal effectively DDoS'd themselves?
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25803010
| bilal4hmed wrote:
| It was never officially acknowledged, just people guessing
| over git commits
| queuep wrote:
| Signal did explain what happened. I can't remember but there
| was something about the initial auth that got screwed up on
| Android and kept retrying. And the retries kind of ddos'ed
| themselves
| bilal4hmed wrote:
| People explained but it was never officially explained by
| Moxie or Signal with a write up of sorts.
| finfinfin wrote:
| I am used to seeing these numbers when talking about social media
| but really... 70 mln is a huge number. It's a total population of
| many countries.. combined!
|
| Retention will be much smaller of course.
| zozin wrote:
| Facebook has what, almost three billions users across its
| platforms? 70M is ~2% of that, so a small percentage. While I
| too doubt that 70M figure, WhatsApp is the de facto
| communications application in a lot of countries, with many
| businesses highly reliant on it. In a pinch, you download
| something, anything to try to continue messaging.
| finfinfin wrote:
| Fair point. However, 70 million in a single day is almost
| unheard of.
| hesammelvil wrote:
| That can explain their slow service yesterday!
| draklor40 wrote:
| Would be an achievement if they even retain 1% of it as active
| users.
| ggregoire wrote:
| Makes me wonder if people even remember that SMS is a thing.
| Seems to me like the most obvious solution when your
| communication app is temporarily unavailable. Instead of the
| annoying process to look for an alternative app, download it,
| sign in, add contacts... just for a few hours. Or people thought
| Whatsapp & Messenger were gone forever and they were looking for
| a long term replacement?
| approxim8ion wrote:
| SMS isn't a viable option for a lot of people. It's probably
| the least private or secure form of messaging available, and
| quite often isn't very reliable, at least in my country.. I
| understand when you say it is a fallback, but it's a very lousy
| one in my opinion.
| ggregoire wrote:
| You raise a good point, although I doubt 70 millions of
| people were actually looking for a "private or secure form of
| messaging". They wouldn't use Facebook/WhatsApp/Messenger in
| the first place if it was the case.
| approxim8ion wrote:
| You're not wrong either. Of course, for all their
| signalling (pun not intended), it's not like Telegram fares
| much better on that front so you're probably right that
| security/privacy aren't the first priority. Creature
| comforts like group chats/stickers/GIFs, VOIP etc from the
| same app might be more compelling.
| noahtallen wrote:
| I mean, SMS or even MMS is a terrible standard for modern
| chats, especially group chats. Compared to Telegram, it's
| slower, has terrible multimedia support, poor UX, limits on
| group size, limits on character counts, etc. Not to mention
| security or privacy. Plus, most of the group chat apps will
| integrate with contacts and your phone number anyways.
| ggregoire wrote:
| I wouldn't definitely replace WhatsApp or Telegram with SMS,
| but for 3 hours it did the job for me and my contacts.
| zokier wrote:
| So, maybe <5% of WhatsApp users. Bit less headline grabbing when
| put that way. Not saying that its completely insignificant
| number, but considering that most likely all of them will not be
| leaving WA, or even staying on Telegram, it doesn't sound like
| major thing either.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Is there a way to join telegram without giving them my phone
| number?
|
| That just feels like a honeypot/dataleak waiting to happen.
| AdamHominem wrote:
| It's a UAE company with a custom encryption protocol, e2ee off
| by default, and no e2ee for group chat. You're damn right it's
| a honeypot.
|
| Use Signal or Element/Matrix.
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| Doesn't Signal also require a phone number?
| manquer wrote:
| You can use a VOIP number or a Google Voice number or Call/SMS
| forwarding services, you don't have to use your actual number.
| tenryuu wrote:
| No
| kleiba wrote:
| That would be a no-go for me too... if I had a phone number.
| These days, it's actually surprisingly hard to get a free email
| account without having to provide a phone number.
| zht wrote:
| how do you live life without a phone number?
| kleiba wrote:
| I'm old.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| I'd guess "blissfully"
| gleenn wrote:
| I did it for a year in Japan, not easy but doable. I also
| hate giving out my phone number. It's just another way for
| companies to track users.
| kleiba wrote:
| I've never had a phone. I suppose it's harder if I ever
| had one but since I never had to give up the
| conveniences, I don't really have a problem with it.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Those 70m are mostly Whatsapp users, so...)
| prirai wrote:
| They went back as well.Nothing really matters to them.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I mean, they don't mind giving out their phone numbers, and
| contact lists as well.
| kazinator wrote:
| 69.99 million won't log in again when the social network they
| actually wanted is back up.
|
| Retentions are more important than subscriptions.
| manquer wrote:
| Without Subscriptions there is no scope for retention.
|
| Telegram only directly competes with WhatsApp , not Instagram,
| FB platform or even Messenger. Social network is of limited
| value in pure play messaging platform, where everyone is just
| interested in 1:1 or private group messaging.
|
| I don't think anyone cares what network they are on, they care
| only about where the people they want talk to are at.
|
| Yes, it is hard to break the network effort of any social media
| platform, however once that critical mass is reached, people
| move very very rapidly.
| xtartupsHQ wrote:
| Well, most of them must have not been sure of when things are
| going to fall in place. Nevertheless, we got to stay off
| scrolling and have some important conversations. Glad that we now
| have many alternative channels for seamless communication.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| I feel like Telegram has some big user base out there that
| organizes into communities. How do I find out about those
| communities to participate?
| anderber wrote:
| I know of this site, but there could be better ones:
| https://telegramchannels.me/
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Offtopic, but "mln" really!? I swear I read "70 min new users",
| which is quite confusing. Is "70 Million" really too long? I
| can't say I've seen this one before so I'm reeling a bit. I saw
| "ml" used recently and almost had a heart attack, so perhaps I'm
| wondering why now?
|
| SI clearly states "M" no? I'd have kept it short and sweet as
| "70M", just saying. Heh, or perhaps 70 mega-new-users, but I
| digress.
| nickff wrote:
| Two small notes:
|
| - The 'mln' abbreviation was probably used to shorten the title
| so that it would appear complete on search engine results.
|
| - I have also seen "MM" used to shorten "million". I believe
| that "M" means "Molarity" in SI units, and only means millions
| when prepended to another SI unit abbreviation.
| nixpulvis wrote:
| - I do not understand how 'mln' is more SEO than 'M'
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole_(unit) states that it's
| 'mol', but what do I know, I'm not a chemist
|
| Without context '70M' should be assumed unitless, and
| therefor must be interpreted as a power suffix symbol. Better
| yet, it falls outside the hex range, making life even better
| for everyone.
|
| Perhaps, if I'm really trying to be difficult, we could try
| to interpret 'M' as a modifier on 'new users', but that seems
| silly when there's no space between 70 and M.
|
| </rambling>
| nickff wrote:
| > _" - I do not understand how 'mln' is more SEO than
| 'M'"_
|
| There are limits to how many characters and pixels Google
| and Bing will display before cutting off a title and
| appending an ellipsis. I believe that mln was chosen for
| stylistic reasons, to differentiate from molarity...
|
| > _" [Wikipedia] states that it's 'mol', but what do I
| know, I'm not a chemist"_
|
| 'M' is used for molarity (molar concentration), not
| moles.[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molar_concentration
| nixpulvis wrote:
| Let's agree to disagree.
| munk-a wrote:
| Would it be possible to get a title change from dang ?
| rkoten wrote:
| Ah, good ol' HN.
| [deleted]
| gigatexal wrote:
| 70M people were so worked up about not being able to use FB they
| signed up for Telegram -- the not-quite orthogonal alternative?
| Sounds 'sus
| manquer wrote:
| It is WhatsApp and Messenger users who were moving, if you need
| to talk to someone right now and the platform both of you were
| using is not working for hours, then it is not surprising
| people moved to another platform quickly, especially if phone
| calls/sms are not feasible (expensive/international/no video
| etc)
|
| Few people have that much brand loyalty to delay communication
| with _all_ their friends and family when a platform is down for
| so long and there is viable alternative available.
|
| It is not because they ideologically cared either way, they
| just want a platform that is easy to use and other person is
| ready use as well.
| jp0d wrote:
| Some of my closest friends and I moved to Telegram a few months
| ago. It's actually quite good. I've to be on WhatsApp as it'd be
| a pain to teach parents how to use a new app!
| lucb1e wrote:
| It's much more convenient indeed, just be aware (I kinda trust
| that you, being on HN, already are) that it's all encrypted-to-
| the-server, so any sysadmin can read or hand over your
| messages. Choosing between known metadata gathering on WhatsApp
| and a potential Telegram data breach (intentional or
| unintentional), it's really a devil's dilemma for me.
|
| Since a few months (now that Telegram has failed to deliver on
| the encryption promise and profit model for many years, making
| it a bit too shady) I've been moving more and more to Signal
| (after also trying Keybase, Threema, Wire, Riot/Element,
| Jami/Ring, and evaluating others), but man usability and
| features really take a hit with any of them. Enjoy Telegram,
| but be aware of the trade-off!
| jp0d wrote:
| Yes, thank you. I wasn't aware of Telegram's shady models.
| I'll read about it. But its UI is far better than Signal. I
| don't use FB and their other products, except for WhatsApp.
| I've disabled all tracking features on IOS just to be safe!
| :)
| kop316 wrote:
| While interesting, I would be curious to see if people stay on
| Telegram now that WhatsApp is restored.
| cgb223 wrote:
| I wonder how Signal did with net new users
| bogidon wrote:
| "millions"
|
| https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1445164521102979080?s=2...
| jiltedgen wrote:
| Why, in conversations about chat apps, does telegram get brought
| up so frequently as a private alternative? Is it not also mostly
| proprietary the same as whatsapp/messenger whatever?
|
| Is it just a matter of a dislike for facebook?
| opan wrote:
| Very good point. There's a free-ish client on F-Droid (probably
| even official), but it's still a proprietary and centralized
| service. I would not really consider it better than the other
| proprietary options, but for whatever reason some tech people
| are into telegram.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| Back in high school when I started using telegram (2010ish?),
| I started using it because it wasn't Whatsapp, it wasn't
| owned by Facebook, and it had a really great UI. And I didn't
| really understand the encryption implications.
|
| Today I really wish it had full encryption. It says something
| about the developers that they've avoided default E2E for a
| full decade or more now. I'm trying to use signal more. But I
| also have years and years of telegram group chats to
| migrate...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The clients are open source, which provides better assurances
| around the E2E encryption than whatsapp.
| SXX wrote:
| Except who the hell even use E2EE on Telegram?
| prirai wrote:
| You can keep it for personal chats. Also it has no contents
| revewled in notifications so apps with notification access
| cancan't steal it.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| Some people use secrets chats if you want to hide
| something, they have the auto destruction of messages and
| chat way before it was implemented on WhatsApp.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Fair enough, not me. But it's there and verified if you
| want it.
| notRobot wrote:
| Note that telegram chats are not e2e encrypted by default.
| AdamHominem wrote:
| And that it uses a proprietary encryption protocol,
| "MTProto", which has been repeatedly found to have
| vulnerabilities, like every other self-made encryption
| scheme.
|
| Now add in the fact that it's a UAE company...
| anaganisk wrote:
| As if we are supposed to trust US or any other countries.
| Lol
| kaba0 wrote:
| Do not roll your own crypto is meant for software
| engineers, not a team of professional cryptologists.
| sofixa wrote:
| > Now add in the fact that it's a UAE company
|
| I don't know why you keep saying that. They have servers
| and offices distributed in different countries, but IIRC
| most of the team including the founder and CEO are
| Russian. They say the distribution is so that no single
| jurisdiction can force them to do too much.
| znpy wrote:
| You're misusing the term proprietary here.
|
| Telegram's protocol might be custom, but it's well
| described and there are open source client
| implementations.
|
| Whatsapp is totally closed and non-interoperable.
|
| And whatsapp is made by an US company, that's an
| assurance for data collection and massive surveillance.
| SergeAx wrote:
| > which has been repeatedly found to have vulnerabilities
|
| No, it has not. Recent research by seasoned encryption
| experts found minor bugs in realization, mostly around
| messages order. @see https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-
| events/eth-news/news/2021/07/fou...
| allarm wrote:
| It probably is, but it is also more convenient than whatsapp
| (or any other messenger for that matter) in many ways.
| SXX wrote:
| PR. And not being owned by FB.
|
| Telegram actually do have ecosystem of open source clients, but
| on other side E2EE is opt-in that no one uses.
| kaba0 wrote:
| As others have mentioned the many open source clients, I would
| add that they are quite ahead in reproducible builds as well.
| lucb1e wrote:
| It's about a few things:
|
| - If you have at least one alternative to Facebook installed,
| you lessen their network effect. People now have a choice how
| to talk to you. (I have another five messaging systems
| installed myself, but I will settle for everyone picking just
| their one favorite alternative to avoid a complete monopoly.)
|
| - If you install a Facebook messenger, you know what they're
| going to do with your metadata. If you install Telegram, you
| have to be afraid that your data contents might somehow leak in
| the future. What's better: a definite moderate privacy invasion
| or a potential worse one? I have trouble answering that for
| myself, let alone advise others (when it's only between these
| two and only about privacy).
|
| - Telegram has by far the best UX of any messenger I've ever
| used. Of course, this is helped by being unencumbered by any
| and all encryption problems by not having proper encryption,
| but it sure draws users.
| znpy wrote:
| > - If you install a Facebook messenger, you know what
| they're going to do with your metadata.
|
| No that's false. Didn't you learn anything from the Cambridge
| Analytica scandal?
| Talanes wrote:
| I'd rate the Cambridge Analytica scandal about the same as
| the Panama Papers: the only surprise was that we actually
| caught them in the act for once.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Apparently not, what should I have learned that you think I
| didn't? Because I'm not understanding what you're referring
| to (of course I know of the CA thing and that it used
| Facebook data, but that would mean we agree I think?).
| SergeAx wrote:
| Telegram server is proprietary, clients are open source. And
| the protocol is open, and it is quite robust despite being
| garden variety cryptography.
| stabbles wrote:
| And one day later close to none of them are messaging over
| Telegram
| allarm wrote:
| Maybe, but now they have an alternative installed on their
| phones/laptops.
| Bud wrote:
| We'll see. The long-term behavior is what's more important. Now
| those users have the app downloaded, have it set up, and many
| have tried it out in a real way. All of those are major
| barriers to adoption, and Telegram has now overcome those
| barriers. I see that as significant even if it does not result
| in immediate full adoption of Telegram.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Indeed. And don't forget how well Telegram works compared to
| the competition. If anything will draw them away on
| convenience grounds (rather than some moral high ground,
| which was apparently not convincing enough or these new users
| would have installed an alternative sooner) it will be
| Telegram.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Messaging systems "working well" primarily means "the
| people I want to talk to are using it". Operational
| failures are a level-zero hurdle to pass, and after that
| it's all network effect.
| Bud wrote:
| I would agree that it's mostly network effect, but I
| don't agree that it's all network effect. How the app or
| service works and feels does count, at least a bit.
|
| Operational failures are honestly not a big factor unless
| they happen often. Facebook has had 2 such failures now
| in the past 3 years. Will this really cost them users?
| No. WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, and Apple's Messages have
| all had approximately that same level of reliability.
| bigphishy wrote:
| I've seen this comment repeated about 4 or 5 times in the last
| 30 minutes. HN is not a place for vacuous and lame comments
| like these.
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