[benhurmarcel]

It will happen. So far Telegram has developed without consideration for revenue, but it cannot last too long.

According to his own numbers [1], Durov's entire net worth [2] can only sustain Telegram for about a decade.

[1] https://t.me/s/durov/142 [2] https://www.forbes.com/profile/pavel-durov/

[jakub_g]

Durov recently announced they will smart monetizing through ads, but only in "channels" of people with huge subscriber count (which generates a lot of costs). Channels are 1:N public broadcasts, a bit like Twitter.

[hanniabu]

That's how it all starts. And how will they know what ads to show you? By mining your conversations.

[daredevil_kohai]

No. He confirmed that the ads will be generic. Not targeted to people based on their data.

[andreareina]

> 500 million active users

> A project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars per year to keep going.

Is it just me or does order of $1 per user sound like a lot?

[Jaxkr]

$1 per user/year sounds about right. I use Telegram more than any other chat app. People send lots of media (and even large files) and Telegram archives them forever. One group Telegram I’m in is 6 years old and has 500+ VIDEOS (and 10,000s of images) permanently archived in it.

I’d estimate I cost over $10/yr to telegram.

[benhurmarcel]

I could imagine a backup solution being built on top of that free storage. Uploading encrypted blobs of data.