Telegram raises $210M through bond sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#81

Post by chrisnight » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #69

the_gipsy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app. Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. Telegram has been the most polished cross platform chat application since its release. All emoji are available without paying? There is no cryptocurrency involved? The whole application is free, and you can get some small benefits by paying a small amount, that’s the least predatory business model one could hope for.

> There is no cryptocurrency involved?

Have you heard about the mess that was Durov’s channel some months ago? Telegram is now reserving and then selling usernames as NFTs for crypto on a new site: fragment.com (Use a VPN since it blocks access from the US)

Durov first announced it on his channel and the large majority of the telegram community downvoted it to show disapproval of integrating NFTs and crypto into telegram [1]. Telegram/Durov’s response? Disable negative reactions and ignore it. For later posts, talk about how there was such a great response to them (because only negative reactions were disabled), and how they’re moving forward with it.

Then, when they started, what happened to the people with their old names? Telegram took them without warning [2]. And it wasn’t just any common names, multiple chats I was in had their name, their brand taken even though it was multiple semi-common words stringed together to 19+ characters.

[1] and [2] - I can’t find an online source currently on my phone. I can personally vouch for it, but I understand evidence would be appreciated. If anyone can find a source, that would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#82

Post by CryptoBanker » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 3:57 PM UTC

hardware2win wrote: post #72

solarkraft wrote: post #68

I have my issues with Telegram, but damn, the thing works. That's more than I can say about basically all the alternatives. The apps are designed and made well and the servers are pretty reliable. Who'd have thought that it's so hard to make a chat app?

Discord?

Discord performance is garbage compared to Telegram. Especially on desktop

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#83

Post by CryptoBanker » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 3:59 PM UTC

shubb wrote: post #78

dgellow wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know what you’re implying exactly but Telegram does collaborate with local laws in countries they operate, and that’s counting takedowns and criminal investigations when illegal content is being shared, as every business entity should do.

Telegram is based in UAE, a country famous for Totok, a social network designed to spy on you. The UAE is an absolute monarchy, and the law is a little more openly a tool if the state than in the west. A company with legal challenges exists there because the state wants it to. The UAE looks unaligned but in a real way it is part of a Chinese Russian axis when it comes to this sort of thing. For example totok was base…

Would it shock you to learn that Telegram is a major source of news for the ongoing Ukraine/Russia conflict?

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/17868

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#84

Post by fisherjeff » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:19 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #74

fisherjeff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I’d be surprised if the bonds weren’t callable.

Eh, why do you think that?

I mean for one thing, a cursory look at the bond market right now shows callable bonds outnumber non-callables 10 to 1.

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#85

Post by tortoise_in » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:03 PM UTC

Emm,where they host and there is no encryption by default! Why not use xmpp?

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#86

Post by Zash » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

tortoise_in wrote: post #85

Emm,where they host and there is no encryption by default! Why not use xmpp?

XMPP simply does not have enough Hype, it's just boring old technology that keeps working and getting better over time despite lack of funding and startups.

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#87

Post by darthrupert » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

coolspot wrote: post #48

darthrupert wrote: post #38

People should seriously move to Signal.

Signal is very obviously compromised, likely a CIA honeypot. Just look into their PIN + Intel SGX scheme. Or lack of open-source client with reproducible builds.

Very obviously? Can you elaborate?

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#88

Post by Shorel » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

BozeWolf wrote: post #51

sintezcs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move from Telegram to Signal? But why?

The parent probably points to security. Telegram is insecure, this has been discussed many times before. (Rolled their own encryption, a master key, unencrypted group chats) Thing is that telegram is a completely different app. It has features for discovering and joining communities. Open or closed. Bots, etcetera. Both Signal and Whatsapp do not have that. It is more like a social network. That said: it is insecure.…

I would think being compromised by the current Russian government is enough of a red flag.

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#89

Post by Arathorn » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:19 PM UTC

darthrupert wrote: post #76

Arathorn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Element X is already out on iOS (as an early release which isn't feature complete yet): https://element.io/blog/element-x-experience-the-future-of-e... . We explicitly used Telegram as the UX yardstick to be at least as good at in terms of quality and performance (sync speed, smoothness of scrolling, proper native UI, etc)... while also being E2EE throughout (unlike Telegram). Agreed that the classic Element iOS app…

Unfortunately the server I use doesn't support sliding sync yet. edit Also, how far is Element X? I just tried it out with a matrix.org account, and it still makes the pretty bad UX blunder of confusing private one-on-one chats with rooms. I don't doubt that they're rooms technically, but you really need to hide that fact from the user if you wish to reach Telegram's usability.

EX is about 2 weeks old. It doesn’t yet have filters to split DMs from rooms, but it will.

Re: Telegram raises $210M through bond sales

#90

Post by the_gipsy » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

dgellow wrote: post #69

the_gipsy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stupid or user-hostile "features"/bloat Pushing cryptoscams and paywalling a subset of emoji-reactions made me move off of telegram. Now I use matrix and as a nice side effect I have whatsapp and telegram bridged in one app. Of course, it's all open source with the typical lack of polishing. But nobody is gonna pull the rug under me because the company needs $$$ after acquiring users.

I have no idea what you’re talking about. Telegram has been the most polished cross platform chat application since its release. All emoji are available without paying? There is no cryptocurrency involved? The whole application is free, and you can get some small benefits by paying a small amount, that’s the least predatory business model one could hope for.

There was a brief period where reaction-emojis suddenly were restricted to about 8 - except for premium users.