Telegram seeks to become profitable for more than a year and one of the ideas implemented by the instant messenger seems to be to charge for stickers and reactions. The beta version of the app highlights something new : you must subscribe to a “Telegram premium” offer to unlock these additional elements. Only paying subscribers can then use them, but also watch them, which may lead to some frustration for all those who have not paid.
This first version offered in beta does not yet give all the information, in particular on the price to be expected. At most, we know that it will be a subscription first unique to unlock multiple features including these stickers and reactions. There may be other benefits to subscribing as it seems little to justify a regular payment.
Apart from adding paid functions, the designers of Telegram hope to achieve profitability through advertisements. The latter should be limited to public discussions, private exchanges will remain devoid of any publicity. For the moment, we have never seen what it would look like. The monetization plan has also apparently been delayed, since the company hoped to deploy it as early as 2021.