from Hacker News

Telegram Stars: Pay for Digital Goods and More

by p1anecrazy on 6/6/24, 5:09 PM with 54 comments

• by JZL003 on 6/6/24, 8:03 PM

  Are there other messaging apps which are equally bot friendly. Telegram bots are just so nice and scriptable, I don't use it for anything else, just a personal bot (so maybe all this bloat and sketchiness doesn't matter) but I'd be happier to use another scriptable platform

  Even being able to have bot custom keyboards/buttons is pretty great

• by ChilledTonic on 6/6/24, 8:22 PM

  This is pretty clever design to me. If Apple & Google don't try to change their policies to skirt around it, it seems like a good way to build so-called super apps on their respective platforms.

  Building a Telegram bot is incredibly easy, and a lot of digital services are more then capable of being handled in that format. Being able to easily charge for that built into the actual software library? Win-win to me.

• by neilv on 6/6/24, 7:50 PM

  Seems manipulative design to me.

  Yellow stars are already used heavily in apps for ratings, favoriting, marking as important. And previously as stickers of approval on your childhood homework.

  In the example animation of purchases, note all the exciting confetti and sunburst reward-like animations... for spending money.

  Not only are they introducing a level of indirection over money (you're not spending real money, but some fun imaginary thing), but they're also appropriating and misusing a popular favorable symbol.

  Just show what these things cost in familiar real money (or at least make it a stylized gold coin already), stop preying upon children, and stop manipulating adults.

• by farukozderim on 6/6/24, 10:44 PM

  I see that lots of people mention it's missing E2E, but that's also the convenient part of it. You have all your chat history in the cloud, can open it at any new device including huge sizes of video and images.

  Signal is good for E2E but not comparable in terms of convenience.

• by CynicusRex on 6/6/24, 7:54 PM

  Each iteration I dislike Telegram a bit more. It used to be the sleek "flagship killer" among chat software, but now it's slowly becoming bloatware. Their positive stance on pyramid schemes was were it all went downhill.

• by RicoElectrico on 6/6/24, 9:04 PM

  So Telegram wants to become a "Russian" super app, akin to WeChat and LINE.

• by datadrivenangel on 6/6/24, 7:44 PM

  It appears that the stars are worth $0.05 each, so this will either be great for microtransactions, and/or lead to some insane money laundering issues.

• by saos on 6/6/24, 9:41 PM

  Telegram UI/UX surely surpasses that of WhatsApp? That’s what I’ve noticed since joining the telegram. It simply lacks in E2EE by default

• by fullspectrumdev on 6/6/24, 8:18 PM

  I wonder how fast this will be adopted by the automated bot-shops on telegram where you can buy illicit substances with a few taps?

• by wesamco on 6/6/24, 10:39 PM

  > Soon, developers will be able to withdraw the stars earned by their bots in Toncoins via Fragment.

  So it's backed by Telegram's own cryptocurrency, or at least soon gonna be. reading this killed the little excitement I had.

• by cunidev on 6/6/24, 10:29 PM

  Has Telegram made any active effort on the encryption/privacy side in the last years?

  With no E2EE except in unpractical, single-device "secret chats", it falls behind the majority of chat platforms (aside from Meta-owned ones, at least), and feels like a Western WeChat more than a place I would like my data to be owned by. Which is a shame because its UX is consistently great.

• by ilrwbwrkhv on 6/6/24, 8:06 PM

  Fantastic features. Telegram is the modern day Winamp. Amazing software with a cohesion in it's features unlike the buggy, broken, hideous Google Suite for example.

• by colesantiago on 6/6/24, 9:00 PM

  Killer app for criminals, money laundering and for illicit payments.

• by GabeIsko on 6/6/24, 8:07 PM

  Trying to stand up an alt currency backed by Russian oligarchs with deep ties to Russian intelligence services? I smell a federal ban if this catches on.