[HN Gopher] Telegram Stars: Pay for Digital Goods and More
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Telegram Stars: Pay for Digital Goods and More
Author : p1anecrazy
Score : 34 points
Date : 2024-06-06 17:09 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (telegram.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (telegram.org)
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| It appears that the stars are worth $0.05 each, so this will
| either be great for microtransactions, and/or lead to some insane
| money laundering issues.
| neilv wrote:
| Seems manipulative design to me.
|
| Yellow stars are already used heavily in apps for ratings,
| favoriting, marking as important. And previously as stickers of
| approval on your childhood homework.
|
| In the example animation of purchases, note all the exciting
| confetti and sunburst reward-like animations... for spending
| money.
|
| Not only are they introducing a level of indirection over money
| (you're not spending real money, but some fun imaginary thing),
| but they're also appropriating and misusing a popular favorable
| symbol.
|
| Just show what these things cost in familiar real money (or at
| least make it a stylized gold coin already), stop preying upon
| children, and stop manipulating adults.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Imagine a society where the big tech companies encouraged
| people to save money, act civilly, and be polite to one
| another.
|
| "You didn't spend real money on pretend things today. Here's
| some confetti!"
| CynicusRex wrote:
| Each iteration I dislike Telegram a bit more. It used to be the
| sleek "flagship killer" among chat software, but now it's slowly
| becoming bloatware. Their positive stance on pyramid schemes was
| were it all went downhill.
| JZL003 wrote:
| Are there other messaging apps which are equally bot friendly.
| Telegram bots are just so nice and scriptable, I don't use it for
| anything else, just a personal bot (so maybe all this bloat and
| sketchiness doesn't matter) but I'd be happier to use another
| scriptable platform
|
| Even being able to have bot custom keyboards/buttons is pretty
| great
| preezer wrote:
| Sadly no. I tried Signal, but it's incredibly complicated. I
| would move to signal if they made their API more easy.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I use Telegram a lot, but Matrix is even more friendly to
| scripting. If you're just using the bots for yourself, you can
| setup a non-federated Dendrite instance and just write bots for
| it.
| ravetcofx wrote:
| What do you use bots for if you don't mind me asking? I've
| never found a use case for messaging app bots for personal or
| hobby use
| omani wrote:
| home automation for example.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Run your own XMPP server - prosody or ejabberd - and you have
| all the freedom in the world to use it for whatever purpose you
| want whether that be remote control, 'bots' or anything else.
| If you're a resident of the EU you'll also escape the 'chat
| control' [1] (mass surveillance) law which is a boon. Prosody
| runs happily on a SBC like a RasPi 2 or higher - even a RasPi 1
| would work - and takes next to no maintenance to keep it up and
| running.
|
| [1] https://mullvad.net/en/chatcontrol
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Fantastic features. Telegram is the modern day Winamp. Amazing
| software with a cohesion in it's features unlike the buggy,
| broken, hideous Google Suite for example.
| GabeIsko wrote:
| Trying to stand up an alt currency backed by Russian oligarchs
| with deep ties to Russian intelligence services? I smell a
| federal ban if this catches on.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Naah, the feds need Telegram to exist so people don't
| accidentally use something good like Signal.
| fullspectrumdev wrote:
| I wonder how fast this will be adopted by the automated bot-shops
| on telegram where you can buy illicit substances with a few taps?
| nurumaik wrote:
| Should've stayed with "grams" as base currency instead of
| renaming it to toncoin
| ChilledTonic wrote:
| This is pretty clever design to me. If Apple & Google don't try
| to change their policies to skirt around it, it seems like a good
| way to build so-called super apps on their respective platforms.
|
| Building a Telegram bot is incredibly easy, and a lot of digital
| services are more then capable of being handled in that format.
| Being able to easily charge for that built into the actual
| software library? Win-win to me.
| colesantiago wrote:
| Killer app for criminals, money laundering and for illicit
| payments.
| nurumaik wrote:
| Tornado, Tonnel (tornado on ton) and Monero already exist. You
| can already easily launder any amount of money with that
| services
| reaperducer wrote:
| "Don't be against this thing that's bad because all these
| other things are also bad. That makes it good!"
| null0pointer wrote:
| You must be thinking of the US dollar.
| RicoElectrico wrote:
| So Telegram wants to become a "Russian" super app, akin to WeChat
| and LINE.
| saos wrote:
| Telegram UI/UX surely surpasses that of WhatsApp? That's what
| I've noticed since joining the telegram. It simply lacks in E2EE
| by default
| cunidev wrote:
| Has Telegram made any active effort on the encryption/privacy
| side in the last years?
|
| With no E2EE except in unpractical, single-device "secret chats",
| it falls behind the majority of chat platforms (aside from Meta-
| owned ones, at least), and feels like a Western WeChat more than
| a place I would like my data to be owned by. Which is a shame
| because its UX is consistently great.
| wesamco wrote:
| > Soon, developers will be able to withdraw the stars earned by
| their bots in Toncoins via Fragment.
|
| So it's backed by Telegram's own cryptocurrency, or at least soon
| gonna be. reading this killed the little excitement I had.
| farukozderim wrote:
| I see that lots of people mention it's missing E2E, but that's
| also the convenient part of it. You have all your chat history in
| the cloud, can open it at any new device including huge sizes of
| video and images.
|
| Signal is good for E2E but not comparable in terms of
| convenience.
| para_parolu wrote:
| I don't understand why people say telegram is missing e2e.
| There is a convenient way to create e2e chat when you need them
| (which is "rare" for me).
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