Despite the fact that the project has been “more effective” than he anticipated, Durov does not appear to have intentions to expand advertising beyond public channels. “I believe Telegram should be paid primarily by its users, rather than advertisements,” Durov writes in his blog post. “In this way, our users will always be our top concern.” Of course, this prediction is likely to be influenced by Telegram’s ability to persuade a sizable portion of its more than 500 million users to upgrade to Premium.
