At least on Android, Telegram is available via Fdroid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.telegram.messenger/

Yep, but that's the "open source" Android app, where the irregular code dumps are often weeks or months behind the released Play Store version...

And it uses openstreetmap tiles instead of sharing location data with google, and a few more such modifications.

What percentage of Android users, or to be generous, Telegram users, are running Fdroid?

it's not a huge investment, and does not cost any money; market share really doesn't matter here when you can get in easily. you also can download the app on their website without installing their store app.

also keep in mind that telegram definitely can distribute their app on their website, like they do with desktop apps.

If you block Telegram from the Play store, suddenly most of them.

That would affect hundreds of millions of people who rely on their phone apps for chat. For others, Telegram would still work with its desktop clients as well as the browser based version at web.telegram.org.

That would only drive things more toward censorship-resistant blockchain-based app stores after Google and Apple's behavior with apps in Hong Kong.

> censorship-resistant blockchain-based app stores

Except that the word blockchain is entirely unnecessary here. How would IPFS not suffice? Or Bittorrent? Or Telegram itself. Unless no country on earth is willing to host X, X can host somewhere. This "X" can be Telegram itself or the app store that it is on. You make blockchain sound like magic pixie dust, but what the word means is something like git (see the Wikipedia page about it for a definition), not "magic pixie dust that makes something unblockable".

IPFS might suffice, it might not.

It also does happen to be Blockchain based . . .

Sounds like you're expressing cynicism more than an alternative pathway for achieving censorship-resistant blockchain-based app stores

No, it's not blockchain based.

How is IPFS blockchain based?