Slowly but surely, Telegram is making its way to the top of the instant messaging app charts.
I opened my Telegram account about ten years ago, as an 18-year-old.
Back then, Telegram was a magical Wild West, ruled by anonymity and free content of every kind.
It was a niche app, used mainly by lawbreakers, copyright infringers, and teenagers from countries with restricted internet access, like Iran.
And yet — the beauty of Telegram is that content is never forced on the user in any way. There is no feed that compels you to consume divisive, inciting, or violent content the way other platforms do, and if you don't go looking for that kind of content there, you simply won't encounter it.
Telegram doesn't make money by turning us into zombies — unlike the Facebook empire, for example.
Telegram has always held, and always will hold, a warm place in my heart. It's where I picked up English, which has stayed with me to this day as my most important professional and personal tool, and where I made friends from vastly different cultures.
On Telegram I learned to love people, regardless of their country of origin or their beliefs.
On Telegram I learned that political conflicts — even the worst kind — can be bridged surprisingly easily through honest conversation, humor, and sensitivity.
To this day, Telegram remains my best source for consuming rich, interesting content from a wide variety of sources, in the most convenient way imaginable.
And above all:
Telegram is there for us.
Everything works the way it should, always.
No bugs, no restrictions, no agonizing recovery processes for important chats and files that vanish into thin air (as happens on WhatsApp). You can open a channel with 2 million users, share massive files, play games together, build even the most complex bots and integrate them with virtually anything — and so much more.
If you want to compare Telegram to WhatsApp — there really is no comparison.
From day one, Telegram has been what WhatsApp will never be: a perfect technology product.
Telegram has announced that it has reached 800 million monthly active users. Total registered users have already surpassed 1.5 billion.
At the same time, pirated content is gradually disappearing from Telegram, as are channels engaged in illegal trade.
Today it was reported that Telegram has been blocked in Spain for 6 months due to copyright infringement on the platform. This can be seen as an important catalyst that will help accelerate the removal of such content across all countries.
To anyone who thinks WhatsApp is unbeatable — think again.
Just recall giants like ICQ and Yahoo, and consider that Google's search engine may soon face a similar fate, to understand that "nothing lasts forever" applies to everyone.
In the battle of instant messaging apps, I am firmly on Telegram's side.
And may the best one win.