Yesterday Telegram announced several improvements to its application, which will start reaching users from 2021. Among the new features are a new group voice chat function and the monetization of channels and content creators on the platform.
However, these are not the only changes scheduled by the application to start taking effect from next year. The founder and CEO of the messenger, Pavel Durov, commented on the application’s growth in number of users and highlighted some changes that are necessary with this increase in uses.
According to the businessman, “during a good part of Telegram’s history”, all expenses with the maintenance of Telegram were paid with their “own savings”. However, with this growth and the app getting closer to reaching 500 million active users, some changes are needed.
Pavel explains that one of the ways was to sell the app, as WhatsApp did, but made it clear that this hypothesis has already been ruled out. Another way, he said, would be to start raising money from the platform.
In a message sent on his own Telegram channel, Durov explains how this will be done. According to the businessman, from next year some ads will start to be included in the application. However, he points out, conversations between users will remain clean and without advertisements, which will be more focused on inclusion in large channels that, in turn, may also have a part of the revenue value of the ads.
Another point in Durov’s message points out that Telegram may also have some paid “Premium” functions, aimed at companies and advanced users. However, it is important to note that all current functions that are free will not change and will continue to be available free of charge to messenger users.
Durov’s full message can be seen on his Telegram channel and addresses all points about these news.
