🤔 "Sherlocking" is when a large company releases a feature available to users using a third-party application or service. Generally, when a company sherlocks a feature, the original inventors aren't attributed or recognized — hence the negative sentiment toward the company that sherlocks features.
The team "sherlocking" comes from a case when Apple released Spotlight, completely replacing the then-popular app "Watson," which did the same thing. Hence the joke — Sherlock replacing his beloved friend Watson. The issue here comes from the fact that the company has access to the data on what features and third-party apps are popular, making it an easy "kill" to replace them with built-in features.
Ethically, companies with access to large budgets buy out or at least recognize the original inventors. Microsoft, Spotify, and even Apple do it from time to time! But how is this relevant to Telegram or my blog?
I run a collection of fully open-source, primarily free, public goods software projects. Yesterday, 84,349,300 users used the apps I built (see the real-time statistics and the list of projects on my website). Some of these projects are Telegram-native bots.
Back in 2016, Telegram announced the bot-prize to give away $1,000,000 to the developers of popular bots with no strings attached. That was when I started building bots for Telegram, too. The same year, Telegram distributed $200,000 and completely forgot about this promise. The Telegram team hasn't granted any prizes publicly since then.
Even though I submitted all my bots for the prize, I have never intended to win anything. There are way more developers in need than I am, so I let it slide. However, the recent developments in the Telegram ecosystem are alarming. Primarily, the sherlocking happening here and publications about it are actively being silenced.
I sincerely believe in coincidences — hence, I haven't spoken up about this topic recently. Things can happen once or twice, but when they happen for the third time following the same pattern, my internal skeptic wakes up and starts to investigate. See, I will give you a pattern here and ask you a simple question.
- In 2017, I launched @voicybot; in 2022 (5 years later), Telegram integrates voice message recognition into Telegram Premium.
- In 2018, I launched @randymbot; in 2023 (5 years later), Telegram integrates raffles into the messenger.
- In 2019, I launched @temply_bot; in 2024 (5 years later), Telegram integrates quick replies into the Telegram Business.
A sherlocking a year keeps the doctor away, am I right? The worst part here is that no one ever attributed or recognized even a portion of what I've done for the Telegram ecosystem (entirely for free). I wouldn't have spoken up about it — things happen like this; the same ideas come to different people roughly simultaneously.
However, in this case, my bots had tens of millions of users, and the pattern is entirely apparent. Telegram tracks what bots are popular to later sherlock their features without any attribution or recognition, fails to deliver on promises for the bot prize, and does it constantly. This is precisely why I quit building for Telegram (see my blog post) and advise anyone who listens to also never touch the ecosystem.
Since I left building for Telegram, I've earned multiple fortunes in the ecosystems that care about developers. And it happened within months, not years of trying. I write a lot of code for a living and build a lot of open-source public goods tools. The experience is alarming: I've earned precisely $0 and zero recognition in my eight years on Telegram, even though tens of millions of users use the tools I've built.
I must warn you if you're considering starting anything on Telegram. If you put the same amount of energy into ecosystems that care about contributors, you will get exponentially more rewards for the effort.
The team "sherlocking" comes from a case when Apple released Spotlight, completely replacing the then-popular app "Watson," which did the same thing. Hence the joke — Sherlock replacing his beloved friend Watson. The issue here comes from the fact that the company has access to the data on what features and third-party apps are popular, making it an easy "kill" to replace them with built-in features.
Ethically, companies with access to large budgets buy out or at least recognize the original inventors. Microsoft, Spotify, and even Apple do it from time to time! But how is this relevant to Telegram or my blog?
I run a collection of fully open-source, primarily free, public goods software projects. Yesterday, 84,349,300 users used the apps I built (see the real-time statistics and the list of projects on my website). Some of these projects are Telegram-native bots.
Back in 2016, Telegram announced the bot-prize to give away $1,000,000 to the developers of popular bots with no strings attached. That was when I started building bots for Telegram, too. The same year, Telegram distributed $200,000 and completely forgot about this promise. The Telegram team hasn't granted any prizes publicly since then.
Even though I submitted all my bots for the prize, I have never intended to win anything. There are way more developers in need than I am, so I let it slide. However, the recent developments in the Telegram ecosystem are alarming. Primarily, the sherlocking happening here and publications about it are actively being silenced.
I sincerely believe in coincidences — hence, I haven't spoken up about this topic recently. Things can happen once or twice, but when they happen for the third time following the same pattern, my internal skeptic wakes up and starts to investigate. See, I will give you a pattern here and ask you a simple question.
- In 2017, I launched @voicybot; in 2022 (5 years later), Telegram integrates voice message recognition into Telegram Premium.
- In 2018, I launched @randymbot; in 2023 (5 years later), Telegram integrates raffles into the messenger.
- In 2019, I launched @temply_bot; in 2024 (5 years later), Telegram integrates quick replies into the Telegram Business.
A sherlocking a year keeps the doctor away, am I right? The worst part here is that no one ever attributed or recognized even a portion of what I've done for the Telegram ecosystem (entirely for free). I wouldn't have spoken up about it — things happen like this; the same ideas come to different people roughly simultaneously.
However, in this case, my bots had tens of millions of users, and the pattern is entirely apparent. Telegram tracks what bots are popular to later sherlock their features without any attribution or recognition, fails to deliver on promises for the bot prize, and does it constantly. This is precisely why I quit building for Telegram (see my blog post) and advise anyone who listens to also never touch the ecosystem.
Since I left building for Telegram, I've earned multiple fortunes in the ecosystems that care about developers. And it happened within months, not years of trying. I write a lot of code for a living and build a lot of open-source public goods tools. The experience is alarming: I've earned precisely $0 and zero recognition in my eight years on Telegram, even though tens of millions of users use the tools I've built.
I must warn you if you're considering starting anything on Telegram. If you put the same amount of energy into ecosystems that care about contributors, you will get exponentially more rewards for the effort.