Same. I used to use telegram for everything and then stopped after I realised it wasn’t really and to end encrypted. The bots were super useful. I used to have one I could ask different bus times for. Was so much better than the app the local bus company had made.

For a lot of stuff it doesn't really matter whether it's E2EE though. I use it for bots that transfer information that isn't secret and for large public channels that everyone can join as they wish anyway.

For private chats I use WhatsApp yes. But telegram has its uses. Why does it matter that telegram can see your local bus times that are published online anyway?

I wish WhatsApp did... hopefully it goes the way of BBM and a more developer friendly platform becomes the norm among normies.

WhatsApp does appear to have some "business" account/API type stuff which I assume is scriptable. But I don't believe it's got a free tier for personal use (although I haven't personally looked).

It is always preferable to use WhatsApp to contact a business than calling up.

Yes, but it's nowhere near the maturity of Telegram's Bot API.

And unlike Telegram, for a WhatsApp bot you need to apply with a bunch of paperwork. If you're an SMB, you got little chances of ever getting access. They'll tell you to go with their Technology Partners and make a chatbot with these other BigTech companies like Freshworks, etc.

Hmmm no, Meta is making money from businesses using their API.

It's bad enough with fake profiles scamming and spamming people, would be a lot worse with more automation

Not having a bot API is one of the many things that makes Signal amazing

Why? Bots using the bot API can't send unsolicited messages to people. (Bots that control regular user accounts without using the API can of course do this, but Signal's not immune to that either.)

Not having a bot API is what stops me from moving to Signal. I have 10-ish telegram bots running for myself, I just use telegram as UI for a script running on backend, and results are easily shareable with my other telegram contacts. I have no clue why not having this is amazing in any way.

IMHO because it means that Signal stays focused on being a secure messaging platform and not an 'application platform'.

Telegram is great because it has bots, etc. but Signal is great because they have one core focus and they don't complicate their infrastructure or codebase by adding things that aren't what people want from Signal.

There's nothing wrong with having two messaging applications; let Telegram be the bot and automation platform of choice and let Signal focus on being a secure and reliable messaging solution.

Bots are separate accounts, marked as bots and cannot message anyone first.

Guess you never even read the docs, less use it.

I use a signal api on a daily basis for all my agentic chatting and notifications about energy prices and server downtime notification.

Setup was quick enough but it needs a real phone number once during setup which is kind of a hassle. still better than using telegram which has no encryption for the bot backend so the devs can read everything you write

Your case is basically the first thing messenger developers try to cover with their Bot API. Of course it works great. I would be surprised if it is not.

No one talking about security, but I cannot argue that Telegram has by far the most powerful bot platform. People do with it great stuff.

Didn't Signal drop phone number requirement just recently?

Next best thing: https://signald.org/

I run my agent over Signal with this, the only difference with Telegram is you need to host this. Other than that, it's great.