Renson Mwakandana
Telegram will soon start charging for some of its features (via TechCrunch). In a message on the platform, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said that a paid Telegram Premium subscription will be available later this month, giving users “extra features, speed, and resources.”
Durov, the founder of Telegram Messenger, teases some of the benefits of the membership, such as early access to new features, larger file uploads, and Premium-only stickers and comments.
However, Durov makes it clear that Telegram’s present functionality will remain free, and that the new features will have no impact on the app’s experience for free users. Non-subscribers will still be able to view and interact with Premium stickers and reactions, as well as the larger files posted by Premium users.
As Durov argues, a Premium subscription will help the service cover some of the costs associated with raising the “already ridiculous” limits on file sizes, conversations, and media, which would be “unmanageable” if made available to all users. A paid subscription has been in the works for some time, with Durov initially hinting at it in 2020.
Although the exact scope of Premium features is unknown, it appears that the subscription will appeal to Telegram’s power users, similar to how Twitter Blue provides extra capabilities to the app’s most frequent users.
According to information obtained from the beta version of the app, it will cost $4.99 a month and will include features such as speedier downloads, voice-to-text messages, chat customization options, and more.
Premium users will not see adverts in one-to-many channels, according to the beta, which Durov introduced last year. This is per Durov’s previous pledge to provide a mechanism for customers to turn off adverts, albeit it appears that you may have to pay to get access.
Durov doesn’t seem to have plans to expand ads beyond public channels, despite the initiative being “more successful” than what he initially thought. “I believe that Telegram should be funded primarily by its users, not advertisers,” Durov says in his post. “This way our users will always remain our main priority.”
Of course, this outlook probably also depends on whether Telegram can entice a large enough chunk of its more than 500 million users to buy into Premium.
