Telegram, the popular messaging app, is launching a Premium tier membership service later this month, allowing users to pay to send messages. This isn’t to imply that subscribing isn’t an option. According to Telegram founder Pavel Durov, the Premium subscription will offer “added features, speed, and resources.”
“After giving it some thought, we realized that the best way to let our most demanding customers get more while keeping our existing services free is to make those enhanced restrictions a paid option,” Pavel Durov said on Telegram regarding the new Premium plan.
As a result, we’re launching Telegram Premium this month, a membership plan allowing everyone accesses to more features, speed, and resources. Users can also support Telegram and join a club that gets early access to new features.
Premium services have been launched, according to Durov, for users who have asked Telegram to “increase the present limitations even further.” He also mentioned that the function will increase the pace and resources available.”
However, he noted that the issue is that removing all constraints for everyone would make Telegram’s server and traffic expenses untenable. So he reasoned that the only way to expand restrictions was to charge for them.
He added that some of the capabilities would be available to users who do not pay for Telegram Premium. For example, users can view extra-large documents, media, and stickers sent by Premium users and tap to add Premium reactions already pinned to a message to respond similarly, according to Durov.
Telegram added a slew of new features to iOS last month, including configurable notification noises, variable silence durations, an auto-delete menu in profiles, replies in forwarded messages, and message translations.
In 2021, India was Telegram’s largest market, accounting for 22% of all lifetime installs. Telegram has been operating since 2013, but its popularity skyrocketed after WhatsApp’s perplexing policies were implemented.
Many users, unaware of WhatsApp’s updated terms of service and privacy regulations, downloaded Telegram, worried that their privacy would be invaded.
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 app’s beta version, it will cost $4.99 a month. In addition, it will include 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 follows Durov’s pledge to provide a mechanism for customers to turn off adverts, albeit it appears that you may have to pay to get access.
Although the project was “more effective” than he anticipated, Durov does not appear to have intentions to expand advertising beyond public media. “I believe Telegram should be paid primarily by its users, rather than advertisements,” writes Durov in his blog post.
“In this way, our customers will always come first.” But, of course, Telegram’s future rests on whether it can persuade a significant portion of its more than 500 million users to upgrade to Premium.
