> Also, being based in the UAE doesn't inspire confidence on the privacy and security front...
Well the 5 eyes do not inspire confidence either, and that's where whatsapp is based.
And Apple has plans to automatically inform law enforcement from device scans. At least telegram client is open source so that is unlikely to happen on the client side directly.
You also lose talking to more than 1 person at the same time.
Also AFAIK Telegram has access to the plain text data from stickers so when they are downloaded by a person on a secret chat, everybody with server access can also figure a bit of the context of the conversation.
And everyone from all companies to which Telegram will sell the data once they figure that there is a good money to be made from it.
If they have the plain text data they can do whatever they want with it.
Also, being based in the UAE doesn't inspire confidence on the privacy and security front... Nor the fact they promised to release yearly transparency reports and then never did so... Or the fact Der Spiegel claims they have evidence of Telegram handing over user chats to authorities despite the fact telegrams FAQ claims they have never done so...