Telegram’s co-founder Pavel Durov, in a recent statement on his public channel in the app, announced that the platform is finally nearing 500 million users. Hence, to keep service at this scale operational, the company must think about monetizing a few features.
The three-page statement lays out a two-fold plan for monetizing the service starting next year. Initially, all the existing features will remain free, and paid premium features will be introduced for business or power users. The company plans on rolling out new features aimed at fulfilling the needs of the more demanding userbase.
Part 2 of the monetization process will consist of introducing ads to public channels. For those who don’t know, Telegram has massive open group chats run by an individual or a group of people and allows anyone to join in. Over the past few years, the popularity of these groups has skyrocketed. Users have started treating these groups as the modern-day forums or an alternative to services like Discord.
Hence, Telegram will be showing ads in these groups using their own ad network. This will also affect any ads that the group owners may currently be placed manually by sending them as posts. However, since Telegram’s ads will be integrated within the app, they will have a better interface and will not be sent to the group as posts.
According to Durov, monetization is necessary to keep the company independent. The revenue will help keep the company afloat and also avoid having to sell it to make money. He also pointed to WhatsApp as an example of how things can go wrong when platform owners prioritize profits over user privacy.
